


All Pretty Ever Got Me

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Antivan Crows (Dragon Age) Training, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Dom Alistair (Dragon Age), Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Accidents, Magical Artifacts, Magical Bond, Past Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Under-negotiated Kink, brief mentions only, crow training sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:34:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 56,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28206933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: Zevran has trust issues, self-worth issues, and general issues. Alistair helps. When he's not making it worse.Or:Giving someone a ring is supposed to be a symbol of deep commitment. Asymbol, dammit.Or:Clearly Brosca isn't a Tolkien fan; otherwise, she would know that rings found in questionable cave systems make terrible gifts.***********************************************************************For anyone with concerns about the tags, I ramble about themhere.
Relationships: Alistair/Zevran Arainai, Zevran Arainai & Female Warden
Comments: 119
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lennyways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennyways/gifts).



> When I Say I don't Care if I'm Beautiful
> 
> (But I do, and everyone  
> can tell, and it's heart-breaking)
> 
> What I mean is  
> all pretty ever got me  
> was on my knees.
> 
> \- Clementine von Radics
> 
> **********************************************************************************************************
> 
> For Lennyways. I hope you like it, because I'm having a hell of a good time writing it! <3 I'd forgotten how much I love Alistair the Blushing Dom, and how much fun he is to write.

"I must say," Zevran drawls to the cave ceiling above his head, his tone as casual as if his heart isn't trying to pound its way out of his chest, "you do take me to the most fascinating places."

Flat on his back as he is, he can't see Brosca, but he can hear her answering snort just fine. "Don't forget all the new friends you get to meet along the way."

"Ah, yes," Zevran says without moving. So long as he doesn't move, he can ignore the pulsing waves of pain spreading through him, and the fear battering at his self-control. Maybe, if he stays still enough, he won't lose too much more blood before Wynne gets here. "Remind me, which friends would those be? The one who tried to stab me, or the one who tripped me into the path of the one trying to stab me?"

"I'm sorry," Alistair mutters, not for the first time. He's somewhere on the other side of Brosca, so Zevran can't see his face, but he sounds more defensive than sorry.

Before Zevran can answer, Wynne's face blocks his view of the ceiling. There's a smear of blood on her cheek, and her hair isn't quite as neat as it was this morning, but her smile is calm and serene. Zevran chooses to take that as a good sign, because it's really the best choice: if he's going to die, he might as well die optimistic.

"Let me see," she says, in the tone of a mother asking to see a child's scraped knee. Zevran would be annoyed at being patronized if he wasn't too busy trying to be optimistic.

Then he's too busy trying not scream as Brosca lifts her hands away from the makeshift bandages and Wynne wraps hers around the mangled wreck of what was his left arm before the darkspawn got to it, and _fuck_ , it hurts. It's not the worst pain he's ever suffered, but the Crow masters would definitely approve, and it's enough to leave him panting and shaking by the time Wynne is finished. At least he's alive to be panting and shaking, which will be an excellent consolation prize as soon as he's done wanting to be sick.

With the ease of long practice, Zevran bundles up the memories: of the pain, of the sight of his arm, of the fear that tried to take hold when he realized the full extent of the damage. It's all in the past now, which means it doesn't matter. The only lesson to be learned from the whole thing is to keep better track of where Alistair is during fights, and having learned it, there's no reason for Zevran to let his thoughts linger on could-haves and should-haves.

So despite the nausea, he turns a grin on Alistair and teases, "It was an excellent try, but your plan to be rid of me failed. I hope you understand when I decline to wish you good luck on your next attempt."

Alistair's shoulders hunch, only a moment before Brosca's viselike grip finds Zevran's newly-healed arm and squeezes. "Leave it," she says in that soft, friendly voice she uses just before she stabs someone. "It was an accident you both helped happen."

"And yet," Zevran says, amused and annoyed in equal measure, "only one of us spent time in Wynne's lovely hands."

"So?" Brosca asks. "Who got hurt doesn't change who's to blame."

She has him there, and even if she didn't, antagonizing her would be a bad idea. He doesn't think she would stab him for arguing with her, but on less than two weeks' acquaintance, he's not prepared to bet his life on it.

Zevran's smile tries to pull sideways into a more sardonic expression. As if betting his life means anything to anyone these days, least of all to him. He still isn't sure why he even opened his mouth when Brosca had her knife at his throat. All he'd had to do was keep quiet to get the one thing he came to Ferelden to find.

His eyes flick thoughtlessly to Brosca, because if he doesn't understand his own reasons, he understands hers even less. The Crow masters would call her weak, allowing an enemy to live and possibly strike again. Zevran would call her interesting. A puzzle box he hasn't yet found the trick to open. Once he has...well, once he has, he is still in Ferelden, and so long as he keeps company with these Grey Wardens, there are plenty of people willing to help him find what he came for.

To be fair, though, the only people he's reasonably sure are not on that list are the people he's travelling with now. Including Alistair, because Brosca is right about all of it, damn her anyway, and it's petty of Zevran to pretend otherwise.

"I am sorry," Alistair says again.

With his shoulder hunched and his head down, Zevran still can't see his face and judge his sincerity, but how sincere he is or isn't is beside the point.

"It was my fault as much as yours," Zevran says, turning the full force of his best smile on Alistair. "I was unprepared for you to rush to my aid." He leaves off the part about not needing Alistair's help in the first place, that the unexpected arrival of Alistair--and Alistair's exceedingly large shield--was the reason Zevran's backflip had failed so spectacularly.

"You were surrounded by darkspawn. Of course I came to help." Alistair looks up long enough to give Brosca a quick, mutinous glare before he ducks his head again. "We're supposed to be a team."

A team. The last time Zevran was part of a team, it didn't end well.

His last memories of Rinna and Taliesen try to rise out of the darkness, but he ignores them and keeps his smile firmly in place, even if it doesn't appear to be having any effect on Alistair. Possibly because Alistair has yet to look him in the face.

"I so rarely fight beside others," Zevran says. "Not the way you do, at least. If an assassin is in the thick of a melee, it generally means they failed." And the Crow masters were unforgiving when it came to failure.

"I'm making the two of you practice together before someone gets killed," Brosca says. At the matched pair of horrified looks she gets, she smiles serenely back. "That is, someone I don't want to be killed."

Zevran admires her ability to make such a sweet smile so threatening. He also knows when to admit defeat. "At your command, oh most fearless of leaders," he says with a florid bow.

Alistair shoots him a disgusted look. On general principle, Zevran winks back.

###

It's a short walk to where the others are setting up camp, just far enough from where they fought to avoid the stink of battle and darkspawn. Well, most of the stink. As far as Zevran can tell, both smells permeate the air in the Deep Roads, and he'll have to put up with them for weeks to come. At least both are usually faint enough to ignore.

Establishing a camp in the Deep Roads doesn't take much work: there's no need to put up tents--if they even could drive stakes into solid rock--and rarely enough fuel for a fire. The underground lava flows are nearly everywhere, providing both light and heat, and on the rare occasion none are nearby, one of the mages can call up a wisp to save them tripping over themselves. "Setting camp," then, means unslinging their packs, unrolling their bedrolls, and digging out unappetizing rations to gnaw on.

Zevran finishes all three soon enough, which leaves him nothing to occupy his mind and keep it away from the dark, jagged scars that now cover his arm and hand. He's been trying not to stare at them or touch them unnecessarily, but without anything else to hold his attention, his thoughts insist on returning to them constantly. Wynne assured him the redness would fade in a few weeks, and the injury already looks months' old instead of hours, without any lingering pain or weakness. Anywhere except the Deep Roads, Wynne could probably have done as good a job as any healer the Crows could hire, but it would be senseless for her to waste the energy down here where so many things want to hurt them.

Knowing all that doesn't stop the fingers of his other hand from occasionally twitching with the urge to touch the scars. There's a reason he has so few, and he isn't sure how he feels about losing--or at least diminishing--one of the things that made him so valuable to the Crows. Perhaps he can make up a good story to explain the scars away and ease the suspicions of any future targets? Played right, it might even garner him sympathy he could use to slip past someone's guard.

It's a relief when Brosca appears at his elbow and redirects his spinning thoughts. She's holding something, something small enough to fit in her closed fist, but she doesn't show it to him immediately.

Instead, she says, "You know Alistair isn't interested in men, right?"

"Are you so sure of that?" Zevran asks, arching an eyebrow at her.

She hesitates, eyeing him. "I was until you asked."

That makes him grin. "I was teasing only. I have no reason to think your assessment is flawed." Not that he's paid much attention one way or the other. There hadn't seemed any point, but now his curiosity is piqued. "Though perhaps I shall give the matter further study."

"If you know he's not interested," Brosca asks, "why flirt with him?"

It's an odd question, but Zevran answers, "Seeing him blush so prettily provides good entertainment, don't you think?"

Her mouth quirks. "It does that. Just so long as you're not expecting to get anywhere."

"Are you here to defend his virtue, then?" Zevran asks. He doesn't know what tone to use, so he tries for neutral with a hint of a smile, projecting a general easy air. Not offended, not mocking, simply curious. Certainly not wary.

When she laughs outright, he relaxes a little. "Hardly," she says. "But you might go easy on him for a bit. He's pretty upset about what happened."

Zevran accepts this with a nod. He's not sure he agrees, but she knows Alistair better than he does. "Then I shall endeavor to make him blush only once an hour, no more."

"And no less, either?"

"The Deep Roads are rather lacking in other entertainments."

"Not all of the Deep Roads," she says. Wistfulness and anger chase each other across her face and are gone. Zevran has seen that combination a few times in the last two weeks, but his careful attempts to pry were met with that sweet, dangerous smile and the gentle voice that goes with it. Now he keeps his curiosity to himself, no matter how much he wants to know what brought a dwarf from Orzammar--casteless but not a surfacer--to the Grey Wardens and this doomed effort to save a country that isn't hers.

"Not all of the Deep Roads," he agrees, "but certainly the parts where we find ourselves just now."

"Very true," she says. "And I would hate to deprive you."

"Benevolent as well as fearless," he says, bowing as best he can from a seated position. Alistair isn't close enough to be annoyed by the grandiosity, but it makes Brosca smile, and Zevran is weirdly pleased by that. He likes what he's seen of her so far, and she doesn't smile for real often enough. Using her smile as a threat doesn't count.

"Benevolent," she repeats with a snort. "Right." Then she hefts whatever it is she's holding. "Well, maybe not complete bullshit. I wanted to give you one of these."

He holds out his hand to accept something that clinks as she passes it over, the metal warm from her skin. In the dim light, it takes him a moment to identify what he's holding, but when he does, his eyebrows shoot up. Not one something, but two. Two rings, one made of braided strands and the other plain.

"I had no idea you had grown so fond of me," he says, looking back up at her, "but I feel we should get to know each other a little better before making such a commitment."

She gives him a quelling look but otherwise ignores his words. "I found those while you and Wynne were busy. It should make you a little harder to kill."

Intrigued, Zevran picks up one of the rings and holds it up to what light there is. "A valuable find." Too valuable to give to an assassin who tried to kill her two weeks ago.

"Not so valuable if I'm dead, and I think my chances of staying alive are better with you than without you."

That, at least, is a motive Zevran can understand. "Then I, and my arm, thank you."

"Yeah, well, try to keep all of you intact from now on."

Zevran starts to slide the more ornate ring onto his finger, only to hesitate at the last second. "How confident are you as to what sort of magic these hold?" Because that, too, is a motive he can understand: by giving them to him, she doesn't risk any of her friends to unknown magic.

Her lips twitch. "Pretty confident, since Wynne and Morrigan both agree. Which might be the first time I've seen them agree on anything, so there you go."

"There I go," he echoes. Still, he hesitates.

"Wynne says the rings are the same," Brosca adds, "or at least, the magic on them is. So I thought, one for you, and one for Alistair."

"And you gave me first choice?" He can't quite keep the surprise out of his voice.

"You were the one who got hurt," she says. "Pick the one you want and give the other one to him."

It soothes his concerns over her motive; she might risk him, but she wouldn't risk Alistair. It does, however, reveal another motive, about something else entirely. "You ask me not to flirt with him," Zevran says, squinting at Brosca in exaggerated suspicion, "and then you ask me to give him a ring?"

"You could just talk to him," she says dryly. "Not everything has to be a flirtation."

He makes a shocked sound. "Barbarian."

"Give it a try," she says, once again ignoring him. "You might as well get used to talking to him, since the two of you will be doing drills together every night we're down here."

"Barbaric and cruel."

"Very." She gives him a friendly thump on the shoulder and turns away. "Why don't you and Alistair get started? I need to talk to Leliana."

Zevran snorts a soft laugh at her retreating back. She's a fine one to tell him that everything doesn't need to be a flirtation. He's seen what she considers talking to Leliana.

Orders are orders, though. He unfolds himself from his bedroll and ambles toward Alistair, who's seated on a stone outcropping a little ways distant from the others.

"Good evening," Zevran says, when he's in easy talking range. "The weather is quite lovely tonight, don't you think?"

Alistair gives him an incredulous look, then turns back to examining his armor. He couldn't make it plainer he doesn't want to talk to Zevran if he said it aloud, but Zevran has been rebuffed by better men than Alistair, and he comes right up to Alistair's shoulder, undaunted by the unfriendly look it gets him.

"All the blame for my presence lies with our fearless leader," Zevran says. "Which leaves you two choices: talk to me, or explain to her later why you refused."

Alistair makes a face. "Why do you call her that?"

"What? Our fearless leader? Is she not?"

"Well, yeah, but it's so...so...so extravagant."

"It might have escaped your notice, but I happen to be a rather extravagant person."

"I definitely noticed," Alistair mutters to his armor, just loud enough to be heard. "It'd be hard to miss."

"In any case," Zevran says with feigned hauteur, "our fearless leader is also a generous one, and I am but her messenger. She sends me with a gift for you."

Only after he holds out his hand to show Alistair the rings does he remember that he'd planned to take the more elaborate one for himself. Taking it now, after he's shown them to Alistair side-by-side, will make it clear he's claimed the better of the two. Fuck.

Zevran hesitates, then gives a mental shrug. Pretty or plain, he'll still be richer by one magical ring, and he needs Alistair's good will. If this is the cost of starting them toward a more amicable relationship, so be it.

"The magic on them is the same," Zevran says, picking up the plain band as if it was always what he'd intended. "Brosca said we could decide between ourselves which of us took which one. I prefer this one, but you may have it if you wish."

Alistair gives him a sideways look. "You don't want the nicer one?"

It's appallingly tactless, and it makes Zevran smile. "I do," he says, "and so I have taken it." He holds up the plain ring to make it clear which he means. "Unless, of course, you prefer it?"

This time, the look Alistair gives him is downright suspicious. "What's wrong with the other one?"

"To the best of my knowledge?" Zevran asks, trying not to laugh. "Absolutely nothing. I simply prefer a certain understated elegance."

"I thought you just said you're extravagant."

"I can be many things," Zevran says. He's beginning to think Alistair will leave him standing here holding the other ring forever, so he takes Alistair's hand, turns it palm up, and presses the more ornate ring into it. Then, unable to resist, Zevran looks up at Alistair through his eyelashes and says, "Perhaps someday you might let me show you a few of the things I could be for you."

The glow from the lava tints everything redder than it otherwise might be, but Zevran can still see Alistair blush. He yanks his arm out of Zevran's grip and steps back, putting several feet between them. "N-no, I don't think so."

He really does make it too easy, but Zevran thinks back to Brosca's words and leaves off teasing. "As you like."

"Yes," Alistair says firmly, then undermines himself by adding, "I mean no. I mean...gah!"

"I take your meaning," Zevran says and resists adding anything about what else of Alistair's he could take.

Alistair looks at him, and for a moment, there's something in his expression that makes Zevran wonder if Brosca's assessment was wrong after all. Alistair's pupils are wide, and there's a nearly tangible weight to his gaze that sends an unexpected shiver of want down Zevran's spine.

Then Alistair blinks, and it's all gone so fast Zevran decides he must have imagined it. Alistair's pupils are wide because the light is so dim, and the weight Zevran felt could be suspicion, or even his own imagination

"So," Alistair says, "what do they do?"

Lost in his own thoughts, Zevran has to scramble to find his place in the conversation. Mercifully, Alistair holds up one hand, palm toward him, and the glint of braided metal on one finger gives Zevran the clue he needs. The rings. Right.

"Brosca's words were, and I quote, 'It should make you a little harder to kill.' She seemed to think we needed the help."

Zevran meant it to be teasing, but Alistair winces. "I really am sorry."

This time, Zevran believes him. What he read before as sullenness and defensiveness now looks more like guilt.

"Brosca was right," Zevran says. "It was as much my fault as yours. Accidents happen, and when everyone involved is waving sharp bits of metal around, well..." He lifts his now-healed arm. "...the consequences tend to be a bit more dire than they otherwise might be."

"That's one way to put it." Alistair rubs his face with one hand. "Maker, I turned around and saw how much blood you'd lost, and I really did think I'd gotten you killed."

To Zevran's bemusement, he seems genuinely upset at the prospect. If their positions were reversed, Zevran can't say he would have felt the same at seeing a potential threat eliminated.

An odd group, these Grey Wardens. Very odd indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

Brosca carries through on her threat to make them practice together, but it isn't as bad as Zevran feared it would be. Alistair's hostility seems to have disappeared somewhere around the time Zevran was waiting to see if he would bleed out faster than Wynne could get to him, and while Alistair's mistrust remains, he puts it aside while they practice. Much more neatly than Zevran would have credited, and it raises his opinion of Alistair a few notches.

Whether practicing together will actually prove useful in a real fight remains an open question, one Zevran is in no hurry to have answered. There'll be an opportunity before long, if the past two weeks are any indication, and the practice itself gives him a chance to remind himself that whatever happened earlier, he's fine now. He only needs to look at the scars on his arm for a reminder of that.

To his surprise, he finds himself nodding off over his supper, hunger and exhaustion fighting each other to a standstill: he's too hungry to sleep and too tired to eat. Not to mention confused and annoyed with himself. It was, admittedly, a long day, but he's had longer. There was nothing about today that should have pushed his body to the limit.

Logical or not, fighting himself is pointless. Better to stretch out on his bedroll...

...and wake up to Brosca calling his name.

Disoriented, he struggles to a seated position. His head feels stuffed with wool, the fading memory of his dreams just as real as the camp around him. They were strange dreams, too, recognizable fragments of yesterday mixed with the same moments from different angles, as if he had stepped outside his own body. Watching himself nearly bleed to death was an unnerving experience, and one he hopes to avoid in the future.

"You all right?" Brosca asks with a concerned frown.

"I believe so," Zevran says, running his right hand down his left arm in silent reassurance. He's fine, his arm is fine, and dreams are only dreams. If they had the power to hurt him, the Crow masters would have long ago found a way to use that to their advantage.

"I called your name three times," Brosca says. "And earlier, you were so sound asleep Leliana decided not to wake you for your turn on guard."

Lovely. Of all the people to draw that particular short straw, it would have to be Leliana. If he's looking to stay on Brosca's good side, forcing Leliana to cover his turn on watch is not the way to do it.

"My apologies," Zevran says with a grimace. "I have no idea what happened."

"You wore yourself out," Brosca says bluntly.

"Apologies," Zevran says again, steeling himself for whatever punishment comes next. At least Brosca is unlikely to be as sadistically inventive as a Crow. Knowing her, it will be additional turns on watch for a few nights, nothing worse.

"You need to tell me when you're that tired," she goes on, her concerned frown now a fully-fledged scowl. "Actually, you need to tell me _before_ you're that tired. Otherwise, how do you expect me to know to stop?"

"I would never expect you to stop for me," he assures her. "But you need not worry. I will keep up, my word on it."

She reaches out and flicks him gently between the eyes. "I don't want your word on that. I want your word that you'll tell me you're tired, _before_ you're ready to fall over."

He stares at her, lips parted, a disbelieving laugh bubbling up in his chest before he quells it. "I...yes. My word on that, then."

She gives him a skeptical look but says only, "How are you doing now?"

"Better than I was," he says cautiously, watching her face. He's never seen her be anything except brutally honest and straightforward, but he also can't quite believe she cares how he's doing, so long as he doesn't slow her down.

"Good," she says. "So if we stay here another day, that should be enough?"

Are his thoughts more addled than he realized, or is she making as little sense as he thinks she is? "Enough for what?"

The look she gives him says she's wondering the same thing he is. "Enough time for you to recover. So we can keep going."

"We can continue now. Yesterday was a fluke, nothing more."

"That was fast," she says. At his blank look, she gives him the smile that makes him more nervous every time she does it. "Same conversation, and you're already breaking that promise."

"I will be fine," he says automatically.

"I'm sure you will," she says. "And I'm sure you can keep going today."

Before he can relax into his victory, she drops to a crouch in front of him, putting them at nearly the same level. There's no smile now, just intent dark eyes that make him want to look anywhere else, before she sees things he doesn't want her to see.

Such as what happened to the last woman who made a habit of looking at him like that.

"The question isn't whether you can," she says. "The question is whether you should."

"If I can," he says, "then why should I not?"

Her head tips to the side, and she studies him through narrowed eyes for a long moment. "Let's say I agree," she says. "We break camp and go off to see what horrible things we can find today. And while we're looking, one of those horrible things tries to kill us."

An unfortunately accurate summary of every day since they entered the Deep Roads. The more time they spend down here, the more Zevran wishes he'd been just a bit slower tracking her down. He would much rather he had found her as she was leaving the Deep Roads.

Except one of them was supposed to have died in that ambush, in which case it wouldn't have mattered which way she was headed. Zevran hadn't planned for anything past their confrontation. Why bother? The dead didn't have much need for plans.

"Zevran."

He jerks his attention back to Brosca, appalled by his own inattention but determined to hide it if he can. "Yes, oh fearless leader?"

She doesn't smile. "I haven't known you very long," she says slowly, "but I'm pretty sure that's the first time you've ever forgotten I was here."

"I would never." He feels exposed. Seen, and assassins aren't supposed to be seen. He doesn't know what else to do but try to hide behind teasing and flirtation. "How could I forget such a bold and dashing person as yourself?"

"You just did," she says, "and that answers my question. We're staying here another day."

His stomach clenches, because the last thing he needs to be is a weight holding her back. "A moment's inattention, nothing more. My apologies."

"Don't apologize for being tired," she snaps. "Apologize for trying to hide it from me."

Why would he deliberately reveal a weakness? She's far from stupid, which only leaves one possible explanation. It does make him wonder if all Grey Wardens are crazy, or was it just his bad luck to take a contract on the one who is?

"Let's go back to pretending we do break camp," she says, "and we get attacked by whatever horrible thing it is this time. How fast will you be, if you're this tired?"

That, at least, makes sense. "Not as fast as I might otherwise be," he admits.

"Exactly," she says. "And down here, slow gets people killed. I saw enough of your blood yesterday. I really don't want to see any more today."

She doesn't want to see her own, Zevran translates in his head. Her own, or the blood of any of her friends. He nods. "I understand, and I apologize for putting all of you at risk."

"Just don't do it again, all right?"

"For you, dear lady?" He gives her a flirtatious smile. "Anything."

One corner of her mouth twitches. "I'll settle for you telling me when something is wrong."

She's smart enough not to wait for an answer. Instead, she squeezes his shoulder and then leaves him in peace. He thinks about getting up, or at least digging some food out of his pack, but his bedroll looks so inviting. Just a little more sleep, and then he'll be fine. Maybe they can break camp and move on when he wakes, if he can convince Brosca that he's fine.

He blinks sleepily at the far wall of the cave, his eyelids heavy. Each blink is slower than the last, until he blinks again and Alistair is suddenly in front of him, crouched down a few feet away.

It shocks away any sleepiness, and Zevran sits bolt upright, reaching for his knives on instinct. "What's happened?"

Eyes wide, Alistair holds out both of his hands, palms toward Zevran. "Nothing's happened. Brosca just asked me to check on you, that's all. I didn't mean to wake you."

Zevran almost says that he's perfectly fine, a reassurance as instinctive as grabbing his knives, but he stops the words before they escape. Brosca sent Alistair to check on him and presumably report back. Which means that lying to Alistair on this is the same as lying to Brosca, and Zevran would prefer to avoid another conversation where she tries to pick him apart with words.

"So how are you?" Alistair prompts. "Since I did wake you."

"Better," Zevran says truthfully. "Perhaps not quite my usual self, but better than I was before." He eyes Alistair in some annoyance. "You appear to be doing fine."

"I didn't bleed all over half the Deep Roads," Alistair says. "Might make a difference."

True enough, though healing doesn't usually take quite so much out of Zevran, even with an injury that severe. He doesn't say so to Alistair. "Careful not to let Wynne hear you criticize her healing."

Alistair draws himself up as if to protest, then looks at Zevran's face and deflates. "You're teasing me, aren't you?"

"Possibly," Zevran says with an innocent smile.

"Right," Alistair mutters. He shifts his weight and settles from a crouch to kneeling, bringing him within arm's reach. "Have you eaten since last night?"

"Not since supper, no." They've all fallen into the habit of defining day and night by when they make camp, no matter how many miles they cover or how many hours they walk. "Such a shame to miss breakfast. No doubt it was delicious."

"Absolutely," Alistair says with a straight face. "There was roast pork, and potatoes, and fresh bread. Butter, too. Oh, and wine."

"Cheese?"

"Of course." Alistair's mouth is still serious, but his eyes are laughing. "At least three different kinds."

"Such a shame to have missed it," Zevran says.

Alistair isn't sitting any closer than Brosca did, and yet, Zevran is far more aware of his presence. He's like sunlight, or a lava flow, radiating heat and light all around, and when he smiles, Zevran feels that same spark of want he felt yesterday. Now if only he knew whether leaning forward would be like stretching out in a sunbeam or throwing himself into lava.

Maybe something shows on his face, or maybe Alistair's thoughts are running in the same direction. Whatever the reason, Alistair's smile fades and his gaze sharpens, as unnervingly keen as Brosca's but somehow much more intimate. The moment stretches out between them, and it feels as though Alistair's desire is running through Zevran's blood, heating his skin and hardening his cock.

It's been so long since he wanted anyone, surprise breaks the tenuous connection. Zevran doesn't look away, but he gives an inviting smile he knows will embarrass Alistair.

Sure enough, Alistair looks away, face flushing. It's a relief and it isn't, the moment ended but the possibility of it humming in Zevran's brain. Not just his brain, either: his skin tingles with it, and his breath feels too warm when he exhales.

"Ah, yes, well." Alistair coughs once. "You've missed breakfast and lunch, so you should definitely eat something."

He shoves a bundle at Zevran and shuffles backward on his knees at the same time, putting several feet between them before he stands. It's a wide enough distance that it's not awkward, until Zevran deliberately makes it so by looking up at Alistair through his lashes.

Alistair's farewell is incomprehensible, mumbled as it is to the ground as he retreats to his own bedroll on the opposite side of the cave. He glances back once, catching Zevran's eye long enough for Zevran to wink before Alistair snaps his gaze away. He doesn't look back again.

In fact, he spends the afternoon doing his best not to look in Zevran's direction at all, which amuses Zevran no end. Someone should tell him how guilty it makes him look, how it draws attention to the very thing he's hoping to gloss over, but that someone won't be Zevran. He's too busy trying to catch the occasional furtive look Alistair sends his way, smiling back whenever he succeeds.

"I see you're feeling better," Brosca says dryly, mid-afternoon.

Zevran gives her a wide-eyed look of innocent confusion. "I am, of course, but what makes you say so?"

"Lucky guess." Her voice is approaching a level of dryness Zevran hasn't experienced since the one job he took in the Hissing Wastes. "And since you're feeling better, that means you and Alistair can practice some more."

He beams at her. "I look forward to it. Eagerly." He makes sure to put special emphasis on the last word.

"I'm sure," she says. "You'll be less eager when I say, leave him alone while you're practicing. I need him paying attention to something other than you."

"I was under the impression that having him pay attention to me was the goal of this little exercise."

"Mm." She layers an impressive amount of sarcasm into a noise that doesn't even count as a word. "Wrong kind of attention, and don't pretend you don't know it. You can tease him again after you practice, but leave him alone until then."

"I live to fulfill your every wish," he says, with a smile that makes it clear what sort of wish he means.

"Leave him alone," she repeats. "Your word on it, because I really don't want to have to stand there the whole time."

For someone who knows he's a Crow, she places remarkable trust in his word. Another sign of insanity on a rapidly growing list, but he puts his hand over his heart and says, "My word on it."

A promise he keeps, not least because she's right. Alistair needs to concentrate--they both do--and not on trying to avoid any contact, whether eyes or skin. The surprise on Alistair's face when Zevran treats him with brisk, professional courtesy is amusing enough to make up the difference, and Zevran is content to leave him in peace for the rest of the evening.

They resume their journey the next day, fighting their way through old thaigs and older tunnels. Travelling in the Deep Roads doesn't allow for distractions, so Zevran keeps his attention on their surroundings while they travel, but he picks up where he left off as soon as they make camp that night. To Alistair's great and obvious annoyance.

In the normal course of things, annoying the object of his flirtation would be the last thing Zevran wants, but this time, he does it anyway. He isn't interested in fucking Alistair, or being fucked by him, and whether Brosca's assessment is correct about men in general, Alistair clearly feels the same about him specifically. Zevran would issue a vehement denial if anyone were to suggest it, but in the privacy of his own mind, he can freely admit that someone could be interested in men without being interested in him. Alistair's reasons are his own. Why should Zevran care what those reasons are, when Alistair wants nothing to do with him?

It doesn't matter that Alistair might feel differently if Zevran stopped antagonizing him. Zevran doesn't want him to feel differently. He doesn't want either of them to feel differently. His body's resounding lack of interest in anyone has been a relief, one less thing to tie him to a life he doesn't want. One less thing to remind him of everything he's already lost, all the best parts of his life he's already destroyed.

His resolve falters occasionally, and it falters most often after skirmishes with darkspawn, because every time, he and Alistair are better at fighting as a pair, rather than two individuals who happen to have the same enemy. Brosca very graciously never says "I told you so," but Zevran sees it once or twice in the tilt of an eyebrow or quirk of her lips. He can't begrudge her the words when the evidence is there for anyone to see.

What he does begrudge are the brief moments where he feels like part of something more than himself. The difference between how he fought before and how he fights now is starkest with Alistair, but he's also learning how the others fight and learning how to fit himself into their tactics. Worse, he has flashes of the old joy he used to feel during fights, the exhilaration of risking everything on a bet that he's quicker and better than someone he's never met. He races death, and at the end, grinning in triumph, heart pounding with the kind of fear that is its own pleasure, he looks up to share it all-

With two people who will never be there again. Brosca isn't Rinna, and Alistair most definitely is not Taliesen, and every time, the reminder hurts worse than any blow that landed during the fight. It's like losing them all over again, and it turns victory into a defeat no one else understands or acknowledges.

Sometimes after a fight, when he's reeling from that brutal reminder and doing his best to cover it by teasing Alistair, Brosca will look at him like she sees past his jokes and his flirting. Those sharp dark eyes cut him open, but she never asks, and none of the others seem to notice. They leave him alone with the past, which he tells himself is a relief: he doesn't have to think up believable lies, or find ways to distract them without drawing attention to what he's doing. He can breathe through the pain the way he was taught, until it recedes to its usual dull ache and he can return to ignoring it.

It's not as though he can change what happened, so he might as well let it stay in the past where it belongs.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time they reach the Anvil, Zevran has elevated provoking Alistair to an art form.

Alistair makes it so easy, his every thought and emotion on display, and Zevran has no compunction about taking advantage of that. Even if Alistair was more difficult to read, two decades under the tutelage of the Crow masters would more than make up the difference. That training shows Zevran where to look for weaknesses, and once he finds them, he exploits them mercilessly.

Morrigan is amused, Wynne disapproving, Leliana and Brosca torn between the two. Zevran has no idea what Oghren and Sten think of the whole thing, and Brosca's mabari, Salroka, only cares that everyone continues to sneak him treats when Brosca isn't looking.

"You know," Brosca says to Zevran eventually, "when I said that not every conversation had to be a flirtation, this wasn't exactly what I meant."

They're less than a day from Orzammar, and everyone is an uncomfortable combination of exhausted, excited, and watchful. The things they've seen over the last weeks have worn on all of them, and the prospect of leaving it behind hurries their steps. At the same time, they're not safe yet, and they're all on edge, waiting for a darkspawn attack to take it all away at the last moment. It makes Alistair especially easy to annoy, and Zevran has sent him stomping away several times already today.

"I must take my amusements where I can find them, no?" Zevran says, giving her a sly smile and a wink.

"No," she says flatly, "you actually don't."

Shit. Baiting Alistair is one thing; antagonizing Brosca is something else entirely.

"My apologies," Zevran says, no longer smiling. "My intent was only to tease."

Brosca makes a deeply skeptical noise, but she doesn't say anything for a while. They've walked almost another half a mile before she says, "You could leave him alone at this point."

"Whatever you wish," Zevran says. "I live only to serve your every whim."

"Of course you do," she says blandly. "But that wasn't what I was trying to say. I mean, I'd prefer you didn't tease him, but as far as I'm concerned, that's between the two of you." She thinks for a moment, then adds, "So long as you don't make him so mad he gets stupid in a fight."

"Your wish is my command," Zevran says with a half bow.

Brosca ignores that. "What I was trying to say is, you can leave him alone because you've got what you wanted. Even if you stopped right now, he's not going to try to make friends with you, so you're safe."

Only years of training keep Zevran moving and his voice merely curious as he asks, "What do you mean?" Nothing to betray that his heart is now thudding in his chest.

"You know what I mean," Brosca says. "Up to you what you do with it. In the meantime..." She whistles for Salroka, who trots eagerly up to them. "...the two of you can scout ahead. This close to Orzammar, there shouldn't be anything, but let's be sure, right? We'll wait for you here."

Zevran is in no way fooled, but she's right, and even if she wasn't, she's in charge. "Your wish, my command," he repeats.

So long as he and Salroka are away from the others, Zevran does his best not to let her words distract him, but they burrow into his mind, biding their time. Sure enough, he's no sooner finished scouting and returned to camp than they bite him, gnawing like insects until his skin itches with annoyance. He can't swat them away, and he can't ignore them, and he curses Brosca silently even as he gives her his report in a cheerful tone.

"Good," she says with a curt nod, when he's finished. "And thanks. Take a break, get some water, eat something. We'll move out when you're ready."

He's too annoyed with her to stay and flirt, so he gives her a mocking salute and goes in search of a convenient rock to sit on.

Unfortunately, the cave Brosca chose for their rest is small. It's large enough for them to move around each other--and fight if they have to--but there are a limited number of places to sit, and all of them are near someone else. The closest is, of course, right beside Alistair, and some perverse impulse sends Zevran in that direction. He wants to prove Brosca wrong, to show that her words meant nothing. Antagonizing Alistair is entertainment, nothing more.

"Greetings," he says to Alistair as he drops to sit beside him. "A fine day for a walk, is it not?"

Alistair gives him a flat, unfriendly look. "There are lots of other places to sit."

"Ah, but I like this one best," Zevran says. "So close to such a handsome man."

Alistair's expression becomes a scowl, but he doesn't say anything, just rolls his shoulders backward and then forward.

"Do your shoulders ache, my friend?" Zevran asks. "Perhaps you would allow me to rub them for y-"

"Stop it!" Alistair shouts, leaping to his feet. His face is flushed red in fury, and his hands are clenched at his sides. "Leave me alone!"

It's so unexpected Zevran would normally have recoiled on instinct, except he can't. At first he can't do anything, frozen as thoroughly as any mage's spell could manage. Then his body is moving on its own, pushing to its feet and walking toward the cave's exit in a staggering gait. His increasingly frantic attempts to regain control don't slow it down in the slightest.

"All right, that's enough," Brosca says in annoyance. "Alistair, sit down. Zevran, come here."

His body ignores her, and his mouth is sealed shut, leaving him unable to answer or explain or protest.

"Zevran," Brosca snaps, sounding almost angry for the first time since he met her. "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm not laughing. Get over here."

His limbs feel disconnected and badly controlled, but they're controlled enough to keep him moving.

"Zevran." That's a voice he's never heard from Brosca before, low and lethal and promising pain. "Get over-"

"Wait," Morrigan and Wynne say, almost in unison. Morrigan adds, "Something's not right. Let me...just...there!"

Zevran's body is suddenly his own again, so suddenly he stumbles and almost falls. Even as he's catching his balance, he whirls around to stare at Alistair, a knife in his hand that he doesn't remember drawing. His heart is beating so fast it feels more like it's vibrating, individual beats indistinguishable, and he can't seem to get enough air.

"What did you do?" Zevran demands.

Everyone's gaze swings from him to a shocked-looking Alistair, except for Brosca, who looks at Morrigan.

"Morrigan," Brosca says into the silence, "what happened?"

From the corner of his eye, Zevran sees Morrigan frown pensively, but he keeps his attention on Alistair. That Alistair is white-faced and wide-eyed doesn't matter at all: he's a threat, whether he means to be or not, and that's all Zevran cares about right now.

"I can't say for sure," Morrigan says. "It was strange. Like blood magic, but not."

"Alistair's not a mage," Brosca says with certainty, then adds with significantly less certainty, "Right?"

"He's not a mage," Wynne confirms. "The magic came from him, but it wasn't part of him."

"How is that even possible?" Brosca asks.

"An excellent question," Wynne says. Her tone is that of a scholar studying a rare tome. "It's not like anything I've ever seen before."

"But it was blood magic?"

"Like blood magic," Wynne corrects. "Close, but not...quite."

She and Morrigan turn toward each other and launch into an argument about what kind of magic it was. At least, Zevran thinks that's what they're arguing about; they might as well be speaking a foreign language for all his ability to understand.

"Work it out later," Brosca says, cutting across their voices without raising hers. "Alistair, what happened from your side?"

"I don't know!" Alistair says. His eyes flick toward her and then back to Zevran's. "I just...he won't leave me alone, he's been bugging me for weeks, and I just wanted him to _stop_!"

The word kicks Zevran in the chest and knocks him to his knees. His knife falls from his hand, a distant clatter of metal on stone he can barely hear over the roaring in his ears. Terror surges through him, the kind he's only felt a handful of times in his life. He's helpless in a way only the Crow masters ever made him before now: absolutely and entirely in someone else's power, unable to so much as thrash, or swear, or scream.

Not that he would scream just for this. Anyone who wants that will have to work for it as hard as the Crow masters did.

"All right," Brosca says. Her voice is soothing now, and Zevran knows she's trying to calm Alistair down.

Since calming Alistair down is likely to result in Zevran spending less time magically controlled, Zevran should be all in favor of that. The fear is still running through him, though, making him reckless and giddy.

So he smiles and gives Alistair a look normally reserved for more intimate moments. It's beyond flirtatious and into open invitation, and Zevran accompanies it with his most seductive tones as he says, "Magic is unnecessary, let me assure you. I would be delighted to get on my knees for you whenever you like."

He's expecting another outburst from Alistair, likely accompanied by a surge of magic that will force his body to try again to leave the cave. He's not expecting Alistair's lips to part as his eyes go dark with sudden want.

Fear and lust tangle together inside Zevran, a combination he knows well, and even enjoys. Both are fed by the coiled tension in Alistair's body, all that anger and power ready to break over Zevran, or perhaps just break him. Most of the time, it's easy to think of Alistair as a puppy, but right now, Zevran has no trouble remembering he's a fighter, a man who wades into battle wearing a few dozen pounds of armor and carrying a shield that weighs another dozen. The thought of all that muscle pressing against him, pinning him down, Alistair taking whatever he-

"Zevran," Brosca snaps.

Zevran blinks and looks at her, too caught up in his fantasies to immediately understand what she wants.

"Do you want to die?" she asks him.

She likely means it sarcastically, to discourage him from continuing to bait Alistair, but it freezes all the heat inside Zevran and sends his thoughts spinning for different reasons.

_Yes._

_No._

_I don't know._

Does it count that he wanted to die when he met her? Or that he's still not sure of the answer?

"I won't hurt him!" Alistair protests, sounding shocked at the idea.

"If I were in your position," Brosca says, "I would be tempted. And since we don't know what's happening, I'm not sure how much it matters whether you mean to do anything."

"Alistair's desires do seem to be the key," Morrigan says.

Zevran opens his mouth to add a comment about Alistair's desires, even knowing it could push Alistair over the edge into true rage. He can't help it: he doesn't know what to do with fear except run toward it, to force the situation to a head and batter himself against it until either the fear is gone, or he is.

Brosca glances his way before he can speak, and she gives him a look worthy of any Crow master, cold and hard and unforgiving. It closes his mouth before he makes a sound.

"Alistair," Brosca soothes, as if she didn't just silence Zevran with a look, "breathe, all right? Yes, good, like that. Again." A pause, during which Alistair's ragged breaths are the only sound. "Now let Zevran go, please."

Everyone glances in Zevran's direction to check what happens, but the only gaze Zevran is interested in is Alistair's. Heat flares again, Alistair's eyes burning, and Zevran knows he didn't imagine it the first time.

Then Alistair blinks and ducks his head, his shoulders hunching, and Zevran can move again. His balance is off, but he grabs for his dropped dagger anyway, squeezing the hilt tightly. The fear recedes to its usual background hum, and Zevran concentrates on forcing the lust to do the same. Now is not the time. Later...

Later is a different story.

A hand appears in front of his face, and Zevran looks up to find Brosca there, ready to help him up. He hesitates, then takes the offered hand, unwilling to find out that his balance hasn't recovered by falling on his face.

"Behave yourself," Brosca murmurs, for his ears alone. "I mean it."

"I will," Zevran says.

She gives him a look like she's not sure she believes him, but she doesn't threaten or cajole. "Anything you can add to what we already know?"

"Alas, no," he says. "What you saw is all I know: it was a compulsion I could not resist, but my mind was still my own."

"Can you do the same thing to Alistair?"

Alistair looks horrified, which Zevran has to admit is warranted, even if it does sting. Anyone who didn't look like that at the thought of a Crow controlling them would be taking naïveté to the level of idiocy.

"Come here," Zevran says, because it's the first order he can think of that he knows Alistair will resist automatically.

Alistair doesn't move, and the relief on his face is comical.

"I'll take that to mean no," Brosca says. "Alistair, try ordering me to do something."

This time, Alistair looks alarmed, and Zevran can't blame him for that, either. Ordering Brosca to do anything seems like a bad idea.

"Come here," Alistair says. He only barely keeps it from being a question.

"Nothing," Brosca mutters. She rubs her forehead and asks without looking up, "Morrigan? Wynne?"

"A little time, please," Wynne says. "We're working on it. If you could recreate the effect in a, ah, controlled fashion, that would help."

"'A controlled fashion.' Sure, no problem." Brosca squares her shoulders. "Alistair?"

"What?"

"In a _controlled_ fashion, remember," Brosca says, with a touch of sarcasm that seems aimed at the words more than Alistair. "But can you do it again?"

He makes a doubtful noise. "I don't know what I did before."

Brosca gives Zevran an apologetic look. "Make Zevran do something."

"Make him do what?" Alistair asks. There's a slightly panicked note in his voice.

"Just pick something," Brosca says encouragingly. "Whatever you can think of that doesn't have him running in front of darkspawn."

She seems to think Alistair's nerves are because he doesn't know what to make Zevran do. Zevran wonders if it's because the only things Alistair can think of are things he doesn't want to do with an audience.

"Sit down?" Zevran offers neutrally. He promised Brosca he would behave, and that means getting them through this as quickly as possible.

Brosca and Alistair both give him a look like they're trying to find the innuendo or barb in his words. Since there isn't one, Brosca gives Alistair a small nod.

"Sit down," Alistair says.

It's so hesitant it's almost a question, but that doesn't seem to matter. Zevran sits so fast he almost bites his tongue when his teeth click together.

"More, please," Wynne says. Then she purses her lips and looks between Zevran and Alistair. "Though if either of you begins to feel anything odd, say so."

Wonderful.

They run through a series of tests, mostly directed by Brosca when Alistair offers no suggestions. The results are somewhat reassuring for Zevran: Alistair can take control of his body and can make him be silent, but the more dexterity something requires, the less control Alistair has, and he can't force Zevran to speak at all.

What's most interesting is that Alistair's words matter less than his intent. Zevran makes several attempts to use the literal meaning of Alistair's instructions to undermine the spirit of them, with no success. So long as Alistair knows what he's trying to say, that compulsion is what takes hold.

None of the experiments hurt, but every time Zevran's body moves without his permission, his pulse jumps. The cause might be different, but there were drugs that could make a person's will malleable, and someone under the influence of such a drug could be made to want--and do--most anything. Later, when the drug wore off, they might be sickened by what they had done, but in the moment, they would be eager. That the drug also made them slow, mentally and physically, doesn't help: Alistair's compulsion makes Zevran clumsier than the drug did, but the feeling is too similar. His body doesn't respond properly, and every time Alistair makes him walk across the cave, Zevran feels sick.

When Brosca is satisfied they've defined at least the basic limits on what Alistair can and can't make Zevran do, the three of them sit quietly while Wynne and Morrigan talk at each other. Zevran kneels at Brosca's feet, head bowed, the magic holding him motionless so the spell remains active.

If he's going to be forced to do something against his will, at least this is easier than being forced to move. The Crows might punish him with silence and stillness, but drugs that manipulated the mind were unnecessary there. Ropes, chains, and gags were good enough, and far cheaper. Zevran's body might still be outside his control, but held still is different than being forced to do something. There's even an odd peacefulness to it. If he can't move or speak, then he doesn't have to calculate how he should move or what he should say.

At some point, Brosca's hand falls to his shoulder in a firm, steady grip. It's grounding, and Zevran wishes he could thank her, knowing he won't say anything even when he is allowed to speak again.

"Ha!"

The sound, sudden and triumphant, startles Zevran, Brosca, and Alistair together. Zevran can't jump, but he feels it as an internal flinch, his skin shivering in anticipation of pain.

Morrigan and Wynne launch into an explanation so full of magical terms he wouldn't understand it even if they weren't talking over each other. Brosca gives them a minute to sort themselves out, and when they don't, she says, "Stop." Calm and cool as ever. Her hand on his shoulder is tight with tension, though. "One at a time."

The explanation is disjointed and full of magical terminology no one else understands, but gradually Brosca coaxes out the information they need. When it's done, Zevran stares down at his hand and the ring Brosca gave him a few weeks ago.

"But if it's the rings," Alistair asks, "why does it only work in one direction? I thought they were the same."

"Not entirely the same," Zevran says. He holds up his hand and jerks his chin to indicate Alistair should mirror him.

In silence, they stare down at the rings: the plain band on Zevran's finger and the elaborate one on Alistair's. Zevran thinks about mentioning how close he'd come to taking the nicer ring for himself, then decides against it. If he opens his mouth to say that, he doesn't know what else might come out.

"I'm sorry," Brosca says. "I never should have given them to you."

"It's my fault," Wynne says. "You trusted me to tell you what they did, and I never saw the second set of spells."

"I looked as well," Morrigan says. "It was my failure as much as anyone's."

"You said just now that the magic was invisible until the circumstances were right. Circumstances like this." Brosca waves a hand around, as if to indicate the whole situation. "I should never have trusted something from one of these old thaigs, and that makes it my fault."

The three of them begin to debate which of them is to blame, but Zevran doesn't really care. He cares about putting an end to it, and he tugs at the ring, wanting it off _now_.

It doesn't budge.

He tugs again, harder, with no more success than before, then looks up at Alistair, who's doing the same thing with his own ring.

"No luck?" Alistair asks.

"None."

They stare at each other, caught in sympathetic disquiet and mirroring poses, both tugging on their respective rings, as if turning and twisting the bands will make a difference. Zevran's knuckle aches, but he can't make himself stop trying. Alistair, at least, isn't doing himself an injury: he's just standing there, fingers of the opposite hand gripping the ring without yanking fruitlessly at it.

Their eyes meet again, and Zevran realizes suddenly that Alistair is frozen in place rather than self-controlled. It takes another moment for him to understand why, and it's a testament to how strange a day it's been that his first reaction is to go still himself, rather than tease or make a joke.

Though maybe he can blame that on the heat in Alistair's eyes, or the answering heat that fills his own body. Alistair is tall enough Zevran usually has to crane his neck if he stands too close, but like this? On his knees with Alistair looming over him? Zevran has to tip his head so far back it strains his neck and bares the whole line of his throat. He can almost feel Alistair's hand around his throat.

He wants it, and he doesn't care if Alistair can see how much he wants it.

Alistair takes several stumbling steps back, angling so that Brosca is half between him and Zevran. Only once he's gained that relative safety does he bolt for the far side of the cave.

Brosca breaks off her conversation with Wynne and Morrigan to give Zevran that cold, dangerous look she gave him before.

He rises hastily to his feet and steps close to her. "An accident," he says quietly, trying to keep the conversation between the two of them. "Nothing intentional, I promise."

To his surprise, she seems to believe him, though she gives him a long, measuring look first. "All right," she says, "but try to keep any more accidents to a minimum until we work this out."

"I will do my best," Zevran says, "but Alistair...he makes it difficult sometimes." Let her make of that what she will.

"He does," she agrees. "Just try, that all I'm asking. And I'll have a talk with him later."

What he wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. He's not sure if it would be entertaining or simply embarrassing.

"I will try," he promises.

She surprises him again by squeezing his shoulder and smiling at him. "Thanks. I know this is hard on you, and I appreciate you bearing with it."

"Of course, of course," Zevran says, waving this away. "Anything to live up to your expectations, oh fearless one."

He makes light of it until the conversation moves on, but later, he wonders uneasily how much she sees when she looks at him.


	4. Chapter 4

They've lost a good portion of the day to magical experimentation, and they're all tired. Brosca had hoped to make Orzammar today, but she calls a complete halt instead, turning their pause for a rest into their camp for the night. The small cave is a little crowded with bedrolls laid out everywhere, but no one complains.

Zevran considers trying to position his bedroll beside Alistair's, then decides that's probably violating the spirit of his promise to Brosca and chooses a place between Sten and Morrigan instead. That doesn't stop him from thinking about Alistair in great detail, particularly the look on Alistair's face before he remembered himself. Zevran very much wants to see that look again; he just has to figure out how to persuade Alistair.

He has plenty of time in which to plot. Once he's spread out his bedroll and eaten his share of the same unappetizing rations they've all been eating for weeks, there's not much else to do. Those who aren't standing guard lie down to sleep as soon as the meal is done, and Alistair is the one with the first watch. It leaves Zevran no one to talk to except Salroka, who's an enthusiastic listener but not very good at holding up his end of the conversation. Zevran talks to him for a while anyway out of boredom, then stretches out on his own bedroll to pretend to sleep.

And it is pretending. His relationship with sleep is, if possible, more fraught than his relationship with Alistair, and has been for months. He didn't sleep for three days after Rinna...after he and Taliesen...after the Crows...

Irritated with his own squeamishness, Zevran forces himself to say it, even if silently, and he forms each word as precisely as he wields his daggers. _After we killed Rinna._

After he and Taliesen killed Rinna, Zevran didn't sleep for three days, which is how long it had taken him to realize what he needed to do. There had been a lot of waiting after that--for the right contract, for the Crow masters to accept his bid, for a long string of boats and carriages to deliver him to Ferelden--and in that time, he slept without dreams and so deeply he sometimes lost more than half the day.

Then came the ambush and its twin failures: his own failure to keep quiet and Brosca's failure to kill him the way she should have. Since then, his sleep has been fragmented and riddled by nightmares, when it isn't riddled by dreams that make reality the nightmare. He would rather dream of the worst things the Crows did to him than dream of Rinna and Taliesen grinning while they dared him to try some ridiculous new trick. Not that it matters which he prefers, because he's never given a choice.

One thing, at least, that's comfortingly familiar.

He wants no questions about why he sleeps so little, especially not from Brosca, so he lays down each night and pretends. It feels like a waste of time, and there's no reason to expect tonight to be any different when he hasn't slept more than half of any night since the ambush. Other than that strange day after he was injured so badly.

Without meaning to, he touches his arm in the near-darkness, fingertips tracing the scars. He doesn't usually allow himself such a blatant tell, but he's almost completely hidden behind Sten, and the cave's deep shadows should make up the difference. Alistair isn't even looking in his direction: like any good sentry, he's focused on potential attacks, which would come from outside the cave rather than inside it.

Thoughts of Alistair remind Zevran there are more enjoyable ways to fill a sleepless night than thinking of Rinna, Taliesen, or what the Crow masters would have to say about the scars on his arm. He could be plotting how to get Alistair to put him on his knees for something far more enjoyable than Wynne and Morrigan's experiments.

It gives him something to do in between fitful bouts of sleep, and by morning, he has several ideas. He sets all of them aside as soon as they break camp, turning his attention outward so he's alert to any threats, but knowing he has them puts a smile on his face. That smile gets him one raised-brow look from Brosca and approximately half-a-dozen suspicious ones from Alistair. Zevran returns the same cheery smile to both of them, as if there's no thought in his head beyond anticipation of a real bed when they reach Orzammar. No need to mention he's hoping Alistair will be in that bed with him.

After what feels like most of a morning's walk, they reach Orzammar to learn that weeks in the Deep Roads have skewed their concept of day and night. They've been up for hours, but the day markets are barely open, and half the city isn't even awake. It's not a surprise, exactly, but it is disorienting, and it promises to make today into a very long day.

Which means Zevran doesn't protest when Brosca gets them rooms at an inn, then leaves him behind when she goes back out. Alistair and Morrigan, likewise left behind, are less sanguine about it, but Brosca doesn't budge.

"I want to get rid of those rings before the two of you go wandering around," Brosca says bluntly, pointing from Zevran to Alistair and back. "Failing that, I want to understand them better. We've already found one spell we didn't know about. What if there's another one? Until we know, or at least have a better guess, the two of you stay here, and someone who can do magic stays with you."

By the expression on Alistair's and Morrigan's faces, that's not something either of them had considered, and neither of them likes it very much. Brosca leaves them to digest that and takes the others with her to dispose of the artefacts they've brought back from the Deep Roads. Zevran hopes the future purchasers of those artefacts have better luck than he and Alistair did.

All three of them retreat to their separate rooms, no one meeting anyone else's eyes. Zevran naps a little while, giving the inn's other patrons time to depart, either for other cities or on whatever their day's business is in Orzammar. When everything seems as quiet as it's likely to get, Zevran slips out of his room and down the hall to Alistair's. He doesn't knock for fear of bringing Morrigan out to see what's happening, just lets himself into the room before anyone else comes along. He has excuses he could readily produce, but he doesn't want to use them. He wants to talk to Alistair.

Well, he's not interested in talking so much as other things, but he won't be able to entirely avoid talking.

Alistair looks up at the sound of the door opening, then lunges to his feet when he sees who it is. By the disassembled breastplate spread out on the bed, Zevran assumes Alistair was in the middle of armor repairs. A shame the bed is covered in metal and the boring kind of leather straps, but there are other flat surfaces in the room.

Though it's possible Zevran is getting ahead of himself, given the scowl on Alistair's face and his flat tone when he says, "Wrong room."

"Oh, is this not your room?" Zevran asks with an innocent smile. "How foolish of me."

"Why," Alistair says, aggrieved, "are you looking for my room?"

"I had hoped your room would have you in it," Zevran says, "and I find, to my delight, that it does."

One corner of Alistair's mouth actually twitches before he remembers himself and returns to frowning. "What do you want?"

"So many things," Zevran says. "In this particular case, I wished to discuss yesterday."

"Personally, I'd planned to forget about it until Wynne or Morrigan tells me how to take this fucking thing off." He tugs pointedly at his ring. "You can't be any happier about this than I am, so why don't we agree to pretend it's not happening, and eventually we can work on pretending it never happened."

"I compliment you on the attempt to pretend otherwise," Zevran says, "but we both know you saw potential in our situation."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Alistair says. He's still scowling, but it's at the door behind Zevran's shoulder rather than directly at Zevran.

"Fear not," Zevran says. "I, too, see the potential, and I find it quite as intriguing as you."

Alistair's eyes flick to his and then away. "There's nothing intriguing about any of this."

"No need to be shy, all you need do is choose," Zevran says. "I believe you have two options."

Alistair knows him well enough by now to look suspicious rather than confused. "Two options for what?"

Zevran holds his gaze and takes a step forward. Not into Alistair's space, not yet, but definitely testing the borders. "Two options for what happens now."

"You leave, or I make you leave?" Alistair asks. It would sound more forceful if he didn't take a step back, away from Zevran, as he says it.

"All right," Zevran says with a faint smile, "that would make four options, but I promise my two are much more interesting than your two."

"More interesting for who?"

This time when Zevran steps forward, Alistair holds his ground. Zevran smiles. "For both of us."

"Right," Alistair says. He's trying for skeptical, but his eyes are too wide.

"Do you know what those options are," Zevran asks, "or shall I tell you?"

He takes another small step forward, bringing him as close to Alistair as he can get without letting any part of their bodies touch. Alistair is tall enough Zevran has to crane his neck to maintain eye contact, and Zevran takes advantage of that to tilt his head to one side, baring his neck.

Alistair swallows hard and says nothing, but his eyes trail down Zevran's neck before he looks guiltily away.

"I take by your silence," Zevran murmurs, "that you wish me to list out the options available to you. Very well then, your first option." He pauses for dramatic emphasis. "If you like, I can annoy you until you lose your temper again."

That gets Alistair to meet his eyes, though his expression is suspicious. "Why would I like that?"

"So you prefer the other option, then? Good, because I prefer it as well."

Alistair struggles visibly with himself, the struggle of a man who knows he'll regret asking but whose curiosity demands he do it anyway. At last, he asks reluctantly, "The other option?"

"You put me on my knees right now, and tell me how you want me to please you."

Alistair's face goes red and his eyes grow even wider. "I...you...what?"

"We could recreate our little tableau from yesterday," Zevran says, "or we could move on to the fun parts."

"You...you _want_ me to lose my temper?"

"If you prefer it that way, of course, but that would take time, and I was more interested in what you would make me do for you, when you have me at your mercy." Zevran waves a languid hand at the room, empty except for them. "We have no audience now. You need not pretend. You can simply do what we both want."

"You want me to...um..." Alistair is so red Zevran can practically feel the heat of it. Or maybe the warmth spreading through him has a different source.

"To force me to my knees?" He smiles up into Alistair's eyes. "Very much. And you want to do it."

"No!"

Zevran tilts his head to the side and studies Alistair. "Or perhaps you still wish me to leave," he says at last. "If so, you need only say the word."

A muscle twitches in Alistair's jaw, but he doesn't open his mouth.

"Well, then," Zevran says. Without dropping Alistair's gaze, he goes slowly and gracefully to his knees.

"What are you _doing_?" Alistair demands, his voice cracking on the last word.

"I thought it obvious," Zevran says. "Kneeling for you, since you declined to make me do it."

He lets his hands drift up the backs of Alistair's legs, so light he makes no contact with anything except Alistair's trousers. His fingertips stir the cloth, though, brushing it against the skin beneath to ensure Alistair is always aware of where Zevran's hands are.

Alistair's next breath shudders on the way out, and Zevran gives him a lazy smile. "Less fun, but not without its attractions, don't you think?"

No answer, but Zevran wasn't expecting one. The look on Alistair's face is answer enough.

Zevran's hands come to rest on Alistair's hips, still light but firm enough now to feel the heat of Alistair's skin through his trousers. It means Alistair can feel him, too, the heat and weight of Zevran's hands so close to his cock.

"Tell me what you want," Zevran murmurs.

For the first time since he stepped into the room, he breaks eye contact, staring pointedly at the front of Alistair's trousers instead. The outline of his cock is clearly visible where it strains against the cloth.

Zevran licks his lower lip and recaptures Alistair's gaze. "Tell me." He keeps his tone soft and coaxing, not demanding. After a moment, he adds an edge of pleading. "Please tell me."

Alistair exhales as if punched, which is all the warning Zevran gets before his head is dragged forward. Alistair's hand on the back of his neck might be shaking, but it's also painfully tight, his fingers digging into Zevran's skull hard enough to hurt as he forces Zevran's face against the front of his trousers.

"That's what I want," Alistair snarls, his voice thick with anger and self-loathing. "And I know what kind of person that makes me, so now you can stop trying to make me say it."

It makes him the kind of person Zevran wants, but he doesn't bother trying to say so. He would rather press his face closer, mouthing at Alistair's cock through his trousers. That he can barely breathe doesn't matter, not yet.

Alistair releases his head as abruptly as he grabbed it, but Zevran doesn't immediately lean back. Now that he has a little leeway to move, he nuzzles Alistair's cock, breathing out warm, moist air that seeps through the cloth. Above him, Alistair gasps for breath like he's the one who had his air cut off, and from the corner of one eye, Zevran can see his hands clench into fists.

When Zevran thinks he's made his point, he leans back enough to meet Alistair's eyes. There's still anger there, but there's lust, too, and he looms so close it feels like a threat. The combination makes Zevran want so desperately that he can't care anymore about making Alistair say what he wants Zevran to do. Alistair has made one of those things very clear, and the question of what else he wants is for later.

Moving slowly and deliberately, Zevran begins to unlace Alistair's trousers, watching his face the entire time. He's careful not to let their skin touch, drawing out the anticipation, wanting the desperate heat of Alistair's gaze for just a few more breaths. Even when Alistair's trousers are open, when it would be easy to touch him, Zevran makes sure his first touch is still through the fabric, light fingertips up the length of Alistair's cock.

"Fuck." Alistair breathes the word out, only the shape of his mouth making it clear what he's said.

"Perhaps later," Zevran says.

He doesn't give Alistair a chance to answer, just wraps his hand around the shaft of Alistair's cock, bare skin to bare skin for the first time. Alistair's hips jerk, and he makes a soft, pained noise Zevran wants to hear again, louder.

The question of exactly how long he could torment Alistair flickers briefly across Zevran's mind, but that, too, is a question for another time. He doesn't want slow. He doesn't want to think and weigh and judge every touch to be sure he walks the line without tripping Alistair over it. He wants to drown in someone else's need, push them to a place where they can't think of anyone or anything except him. He wants to be more than the center of their attention; he wants to have all of it.

He wants all of _Alistair's_ attention.

The sound Alistair makes when Zevran takes the whole length of his cock in one smooth glide is nearly despairing, like someone surrendering after a hard-fought battle. Then one hand fists in Zevran's hair, dragging his head back and his mouth off Alistair's cock, and for one moment, Zevran thinks he's misjudged everything very badly.

Except Alistair is stroking himself with his other hand, quick strokes that are much rougher than anything Zevran would have done unless prompted. The hand in Zevran's hair might have pulled him back a little, but Alistair doesn't try to push him further away. He just holds Zevran in place, only a few inches from his cock, so close but not as close as Zevran wants to be.

"Open your mouth," Alistair grates out. Angry, desperate, commanding, and Zevran wants so badly his cock aches.

He opens his mouth and looks up, half expecting Alistair to have his eyes closed. He doesn't, though, and his eyes bore into Zevran's, demanding Zevran's attention the way Zevran wanted his. Alistair doesn't so much order him not to look away as refuse to allow it, and the power in his gaze has nothing to do with whatever magic is in those rings. It's a look Zevran wouldn't have thought Alistair was capable of, and the thrill of learning otherwise is about more than lust. Zevran's life has been spent looking for other people's secrets, and this is something very secret indeed.

"Close your eyes." Alistair's voice is less angry and more commanding this time, as if Zevran's quick obedience to his first order has given him confidence. "Now."

Zevran's eyes close so fast he would suspect Alistair of using the ring, consciously or not, except he feels no trace of its magic. All he knows is that a moment ago, he couldn't imagine looking anywhere but at Alistair, and now he can't imagine anything except the flickering darkness behind his closed eyes. He can lose himself in the sound of Alistair's hand moving on his cock, and in the prickling almost-pain across his scalp where Alistair has a grip on his hair. If Alistair told him to come right now, Zevran would.

Alistair groans just as drops of something wet splash across Zevran's face. Some of it lands in his mouth, sharp and bitter on his tongue, and he opens his mouth wider, hoping for more. When there isn't any, disappointment stabs him in the chest, intense all out of proportion.

For a while, there's no sound except Alistair's harsh panting. It's one of only three things Zevran is aware of: Alistair's breathing, and Alistair's seed on his face, and Alistair's hand in his hair.

"Fucking Maker," Alistair mutters. He sounds dazed more than commanding. "You...you look...fuck, I never thought... _Maker_."

Zevran wants to laugh. Not in mockery, but because the amazement in Alistair's voice is a compliment of sorts, and the praise, however indirect, feeds something inside Zevran he usually tries to ignore.

"All right," Alistair says. It sounds like he's talking to himself, but his next words are clearly for Zevran. "You, um, you can close your mouth. And open your eyes. If you want."

That earlier commanding presence is gone, and Zevran feels another sharp stab of disappointment. He leaves his eyes closed for another moment to stave off the inevitable final destruction of the illusion Alistair created.

But it's not an illusion, Zevran reminds himself, and having once convinced Alistair to show this unexpected side of himself, it should be easier to persuade him to do it again. Given enough time, Alistair might gain enough confidence not to stumble over his words, and that would be a thing of beauty.

Alistair's hand in his hair loosens and then releases him entirely, leaving Zevran without even that small anchor. He gets one last quick brush of Alistair's fingers through his hair before Alistair is also gone, moving past him. Toward his pack, if Zevran's memory of the room is correct.

Some rustling follows, Alistair lacing up his trousers and digging through his pack, followed by a silence that stretches long enough to become a blatant hint. That's another disappointment, but a smaller one. Zevran has known plenty of selfish or thoughtless lovers, and while he would have expected better of Alistair, it's the sort of disappointment he long ago learned to shrug off. Once he's back in his room, he can stroke himself to memories of the rest of what's happened, and that will be good enough.

Despite a few twinges from his legs, Zevran rises to his feet as gracefully as he went down to his knees. If he's to be disregarded, then he'll hold on to what he can of his dignity, and that includes not allowing anyone to see him stumble. A twitch of his tunic, a quick pass over his face with his sleeve, and he's presentable enough for the short walk back to his own room. He can do a better job of cleaning up once he's in private.

Zevran's hand is on the door when Alistair's confused, "What are you doing?" pulls him up short.

Zevran turns to give him a raised-brow look over one shoulder. "Leaving?" It's technically a question, but he layers enough sarcasm into it to make it nothing of the sort. "You are finished, which makes my presence unnecessary."

Alistair doesn't immediately answer, so Zevran reaches for the door, only to be brought up short again when Alistair says, "You don't have to."

"But I believe that I should," Zevran says. He doesn't bother to look back this time. "You needn't concern yourself with me."

Then he's out the door before Alistair can drag this out any further.

###

Brosca is gone most of the day, but Zevran can't say he notices. He strokes himself to the memory of Alistair's hand in his hair, then naps, then strokes himself again and naps again. In between, he cleans his gear and himself more thoroughly than he's been able to since they headed into the Deep Roads. It's a self-indulgent day, and if it doesn't make up for the fact that Brosca returns with no additional information about the rings or how to remove them, Zevran has no regrets.

By the time they all sit down to breakfast the next morning, he's moved past his irritation over the way Alistair ignored him once his presence was no longer convenient. The thought of another encounter like yesterday is thrilling, even if it ends the same way, with Zevran alone in his room, stroking his own cock.

Alistair, however, doesn't seem interested. He avoids Zevran at breakfast, which earns Zevran a look from Brosca when no one else is looking. Zevran puts a hand over his heart and shakes his head, trying to convey that he's kept his promise. It doesn't feel like a lie: he wasn't trying to antagonize Alistair, or make him angry. The rest of it is none of Brosca's business unless Alistair chooses to make it so.

The others don't seem to notice anything, likely chalking it up to more of the same thing they've seen before. They've spent the last few weeks watching Zevran tease Alistair, and no one is surprised that Alistair avoids him now. Perfect.

Or it would be, if the whole thing was an act on Alistair's part. Since he really is avoiding Zevran, it makes things more difficult. It's a bit silly as far as Zevran is concerned, given Alistair is the one who got everything he wanted, but Fereldans are often silly about sex. Zevran shrugs it off and focuses on his seduction instead.

The list of things he could try is long, but he discards most of them as so obvious they would draw attention from the others, or so subtle Alistair might not recognize them as overtures. Many of the rest are too romantic; he wants Alistair to fuck him, not propose marriage. As amusing a mental image as that makes, it would infuriate Brosca, and rightly so. Making Alistair fall in love with him--and Zevran has no doubt he could do it, whatever Brosca thinks--definitely violates the spirit of his promise.

He finally decides to keep it simple: remind Alistair of what happened as often as possible, in ways unrecognizable to anyone who wasn't present, then wait for Alistair to seek him out. The suspense will make it all the more interesting to Zevran, while he waits for Alistair to give in. The best part is, it's a plan that will work anywhere.

All unknowing, Brosca gives him the perfect setting to work in, though when she pulls him aside after breakfast, he thinks at first she intends to question him further about Alistair's behavior.

"I don't think we're going to find out anything about the rings in Orzammar," Brosca says instead. "I've been to the Shaperate and talked to some people I know from before-"

Local members of the Carta, Zevran translates.

"-but nobody's even heard of something like them. Our best bet is the Circle, but that's weeks away." She grimaces. "Fuck, we're at least a week away from even leaving here, and who knows what the weather will be like. It could be months before we can get to Lake Calenhad."

Zevran nods, disappointed but unsurprised.

"I don't like the idea of having you and Alistair under some spell we don't understand for the next month, and I'm guessing you don't, either."

"It would not be my first choice, no," he says dryly.

"Then unless you can think of another option," she says, "I'm going to ask Wynne and Morrigan to study the rings, at least until we're back on the road."

It's the logical choice, though the fact that neither of them noticed the spell in the first place doesn't fill him with confidence. Beyond that...

"Their study will require assistance from Alistair and myself, yes?" he asks, without letting her see how little he likes the idea.

"Yeah," she says, "and that's why I wanted to talk to you first."

His confusion, at least, seems safe enough to show, so he cocks his head. "Me?"

"You," she confirms. "I wanted to ask if you'd be all right with it."

"The decision is yours," Zevran says, surprised.

"Not really," she says. "I want to know what's going on, and I'll do what I can to help, but this part? This is yours. I won't do this without your permission."

Crazy. All Grey Wardens must be crazy.

At least in this case, it's easy to tell what she wants him to do. "Whatever will help," he assures her. "I would like to know the cause of all this."

It's mostly true, and she takes the statement at face value. "I'll tell the others."

To Zevran's amusement, she does indeed tell rather than ask: the other three receive a brisk order, though he's spent enough time around Brosca to know she would listen to objections if there were any.

There aren't.

The four of them--Wynne, Morrigan, Alistair, and Zevran--gather in Morrigan's room once Brosca has collected up the rest of the party and left on whatever errands she has in the city. There's some flipping through various books, but that doesn't last nearly long enough before Wynne and Morrigan really get started, with the same set of tests they went through before. If Zevran had any affinity for magic, maybe he would see something different in the tests, but from his point of view, it's a long day of his body sitting, standing, and walking at Alistair's command.

It's as awful as Zevran remembered, that feeling that his mind has been disconnected from his body, leaving him a prisoner in his own head. It reminds him of too many times and places where the Crows did the same thing, and he's not sure if it's better or worse than the drugs the Crows used. At least the drugs made it seem all right in the moment. Afterward, he'll feel the same about it either way, but he might as well be spared a few hours of misery.

Still, it's something he's dealt with before, and Alistair isn't going to order him to do any of the things the Crows did. Alistair has no interest in underscoring that Zevran is a slave, body and mind and soul. When his body is ignoring his commands, Zevran reminds himself that the echoes are only echoes and uses the reminder as a steady chant to block out the nausea and the fear.

It's not as if any one trial lasts very long. At most, he'll pace the length of the small room two or three times, until Wynne or Morrigan gives Alistair a nod to release the magic. Then the two mages will argue while the non-mages wait, Alistair with his arms crossed and his fingers drumming silently on his upper arm.

For his part, Zevran has an entirely different way to pass the time: inventing new ways to remind Alistair of the previous day. It's easiest when the spell is active, even with their audience, as it makes perfect sense for Zevran to stare at someone using magic to control him. He doesn't smirk or wink or twitch so much as an eyebrow, but he holds Alistair's gaze the entire time, unless Alistair makes him walk in a different direction, one where it would be difficult or impossible to maintain eye contact.

Alistair could always order him to look somewhere else, but he never does. Zevran doesn't know if that's because he doesn't think of it, doesn't want to, or doesn't want to draw attention to what Zevran is doing. Whatever Alistair's reasons, Wynne's and Morrigan's preoccupation is the only reason his expression doesn't give everything away within the first hour. During the times Alistair makes him do things that prevent eye contact, Zevran concentrates on the memory of the heat in Alistair's eyes to ward off memories of the Crows.

The game is more difficult when Alistair isn't controlling him, but Zevran finds ways. If he's sitting when Alistair releases him, he remains seated; if he's standing, he sits. On the bed by preference, or the floor if it won't seem odd, and the chair only when he has to. Wherever he sits, he keeps his chin just a little higher than he has to, showing Alistair his throat. Alistair's gaze runs down it more than once, warm and intimate as a touch, and Zevran counts it as a win each time.

It's almost noon when Alistair forgets himself: rather than order Zevran to walk across the room, what he says in a more commanding voice than he's used so far is, "Kneel."

Zevran goes gladly, which probably undermines the test, but that's the last thing on his mind when he's on his knees in front of Alistair, that word ringing in the air and the tension pulled taut between them. Zevran can't move his body, but he can smile, and he does it now, a fleeting thing just for Alistair.

Alistair swallows and tears his gaze away. "Get up."

His voice wavers at the end, and Wynne gives him a distracted frown. "Do you need some water? I should have thought of that earlier."

"I...yeah, I think I do."

He does his best to avoid meeting Zevran's eyes after that, but Zevran can feel him watching.

They break at noon, each to their own room to eat and have some time away from the others. When they resume their work in the early afternoon, Alistair is more relaxed and less susceptible to the game Zevran continues to play. Zevran doesn't know for sure what's changed, but he has his suspicions, and he lets that suspicion add heat to the looks he gives Alistair. The thought of Alistair in his room with his hand around his cock is more than warm enough for that.

To counter Alistair's attempts to reduce the tension, Zevran develops a sudden need to play constantly with his own hair. There's no subtle way to grab a handful and yank, but he can twist it around his fingers, or comb them roughly through it, or take out his braids and re-do them with painstaking care.

By the end of the day, Alistair is agitated enough that Wynne notices. "Are you all right?" she asks as she begins gathering up the books she and Morrigan have been looking through.

Alistair is a terrible liar at the best of times, and Zevran watches with some amusement as he flails for an answer. After a moment, Alistair takes advantage of Wynne's distraction to cast a glance at Zevran that's half pleading and half demanding. Zevran can practically hear him say, "You made this mess, you fix it."

"Too much time in a small space," Zevran says easily. "A walk around the inn would do both of us good. The two of you will be nearby if anything goes amiss."

Alistair nods along, but as soon as they've escaped Morrigan's room, he vanishes into his own, sabotaging Zevran's plan to take advantage of the excuse he made to Wynne. Zevran shrugs mentally and returns to his own room. For all the game he's been playing was intended to excite Alistair, it wouldn't have been nearly as effective if it didn't excite Zevran, too. After an entire day of it, he wants some kind of relief. If not with Alistair, then at least with his own hand.

As soon as Zevran starts to stroke himself, heat gathers fast, much faster than he expected. He lets it happen, lets it build and crash over him in less time than it would normally take him to get undressed. It leaves him blinking and a little dazed, his thoughts as uncoordinated as his body was when Alistair had control of it. This, at least, is a much more pleasant sensation, and Zevran is content to wallow in it until Brosca calls him to supper.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter officially puts me over 1,000,000 words on AO3, and I can't decide if my reaction is "holy shit that's a lot" or "is that all?"

Zevran half expects Alistair to sneak into his room after everyone else has gone to bed, but the night passes without any visitors. The following day is indistinguishable from the previous in all the ways that matter: hours of teasing Alistair in a dozen subtle ways, broken up by endless, nauseating experiments that Zevran tries not to think about. He thinks about ways to tease Alistair instead. The look on Alistair's face says it's working, but he doesn't show up in Zevran's room that night, either.

In all, Alistair holds out for four days, which is three more than Zevran would have thought him capable of. Zevran is impressed, but when Alistair lets himself into Zevran's room on the fourth night, it doesn't seem like a good time to mention it. Alistair's expression is angry and a little wild, his hands clenching and unclenching. He looks dangerous, but the fear that makes Zevran's skin prickle is exhilarating.

That, too, seems like something better left unsaid, at least for now.

Zevran straightens from the basin where he'd been about to wash his face, letting Alistair's gaze rake down and then back up the full length of his body. From Zevran's point of view, the timing is perfect: he'd been nearly ready for bed, and so he's wearing nothing but a pair of trousers. He's even turned so his scarred arm is on the opposite side of his body from Alistair, putting it mostly in shadow. Alistair is fully dressed, alas, but at least he isn't wearing his armor.

"What do you _want_?" Alistair growls, as soon as the door has closed behind him.

Not the question Zevran was expecting. Has that been the problem all this time, that Alistair didn't understand what Zevran wanted him to do?

It doesn't seem likely, but Zevran answers as if it is. He runs his own gaze over Alistair's body, slow and lingering, and when his eyes finally make it back to Alistair's, he smiles seductively. "Shall I show you?"

Alistair grabs two fistfuls of his own hair and makes a sound halfway between a growl and a nearly-silent scream of frustration. "You don't make any sense! You do everything you can to piss me off for weeks, then all of a sudden you want to...to...get on your knees for me, and when I mess up you leave without telling me what I did wrong, and now you're acting like you want me to do it again even though I fucked it up the first time, and I don't _understand_!"

Put like that...

Zevran winces internally but rallies quickly. Not all of that is true, or if it is, Alistair is even more naïve than he'd seemed. "Do you truly not know what went wrong?"

"No!" To Alistair's credit, he keeps his voice down despite his obvious anger. "I thought it was what you wanted."

"And what you wanted," Zevran points out.

Alistair looks down, and some of his anger drains away, replaced with embarrassment. "And what I wanted," he agrees unhappily. "I don't know why, I wish I didn't, but...yes. What I wanted, too."

Why are Fereldans so strange about sex? Zevran keeps his exasperated sigh internal and his tone light. "Did I seem like I minded?"

"No," Alistair says, anger returning. "And that's why I don't understand. I thought it was what you wanted, I thought you liked it, but then you just left!" He folds his arms tightly across his chest and meets Zevran's eyes again, his expression a combination of anger and shame. "Was it the, um, the part where I...um...on your face?"

Zevran tries to answer, but Alistair talks over him. "Because I'm sorry about that, I didn't mean to-" He grimaces. "Never mind, I did mean to, at the end when I wasn't thinking, but I know I shouldn't have, and I was trying to find something to clean you up, but you didn't give me a chance."

"You were a long time looking for something that should have been easy to find," Zevran says sardonically.

"Because I was trying not to fall over," Alistair snaps. "Or shove my cock in your mouth and tell you to suck it until I was hard again."

Zevran makes a mental note: the angrier Alistair gets, the less trouble he has with certain words that Zevran would like to hear him say again. And again. And again.

"You could have," Zevran says.

"I know I could have!" Alistair says. He's shaking now, and Zevran feels a sharp, unexpected stab of sympathy. "That doesn't mean I _should_."

"Ah, let me rephrase," Zevran says. "When I say you could have, I meant that I would have enjoyed it if you had."

Alistair's mouth opens, then closes. He takes a long, deep breath, and when he goes on, his voice is unnaturally calm, almost flat. "You don't know what you looked like, do you?"

"I have an idea," Zevran says.

"You really don't. Not how you looked to me, anyway. Fucking Maker, you were on your knees with...with that on your face and your mouth open like you were begging for it." Alistair scrubs a hand roughly through his hair. "There was a little part of me that was convinced I was in the Fade, all right? That's how you looked to me."

Zevran's smile widens. "That may be the best compliment anyone has ever paid me."

Alistair gives him an incredulous look. "I hope not."

"To tell me they mistook me for a fantasy crafted just for their pleasure, by a creature that could see everything they wanted? I consider that quite the compliment."

"Well, yeah, but there's other things to-" Alistair cuts himself off with a hard shake of his head. "Never mind, not the point. All I'm trying to say is, I couldn't think with you there like that. Not about anything useful. If I'd already had a cloth in my hand, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have known what to do with it. Andraste save me, I sort of did have one." He tugs pointedly at the hem of his shirt and makes a quick motion like he's using it to wipe something away.

"You also had these," Zevran says, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers.

"But then I'd still have needed something to clean my hand," Alistair says in puzzlement, "and I'd've had to get it one-handed."

He's actually serious. Zevran almost buries his face in his hands in despair, and the only thing that stops him is the knowledge it will make Alistair more self-conscious. It would be counter-productive, since what Zevran wants is to draw out the person he's caught glimpses of, someone powerful, commanding, and in control of everything around him.

"Let us return to that in a moment." Zevran smiles. "Perhaps with a demonstration."

"That...um...all right." Alistair looks intrigued and wary. Zevran is pleased to see the first and can't blame him for the second.

"Allow me to explain one thing," Zevran says, and waits for Alistair's nod. "There is a certain kind of person whose concern is only for their own pleasure. When they have what they want, their partner becomes unnecessary, to be sent on their way as quickly as possible."

"But I didn't tell you to leave."

"Not all such people do. Some hint that it might be time for you to be elsewhere. Perhaps they think it more polite, or perhaps it embarrasses them to be so selfish."

"Then why do it?" Alistair mutters. His brows draw in, and hurt flashes across his face. "Do you really think I'm that kind of person?"

"No," Zevran says. He gives Alistair another smile, apologetic this time. "I admit, thinking I had been wrong on that point might have shortened my temper, but it did feel as though I had knelt there quite a while."

"It probably was a while," Alistair says. The anger is gone, and he just looks embarrassed and awkward. "I was having a lot of trouble remembering what I was doing."

Silence falls, heavy and uncomfortable. Alistair fidgets and finally says, "I, uh, I guess it's good we cleared all that up."

"Indeed," Zevran says.

"Well," Alistair says, only to pause and fidget with his sleeve again. "It's late, so I should, um, probably go to bed."

"Or you could stay a little longer," Zevran says.

Alistair looks at him sharply. It's a measuring sort of look, and Zevran appears to be coming up short.

"We enjoyed ourselves the last time, until our little misstep." Zevran eases his voice down a little. Lower, but not all the way to seductive. Alistair might bolt if he did that. "Now that we know where we went wrong, is there any reason not to try again?"

The scale is tipping in Zevran's favor, but it isn't there yet. Alistair watches him, wide-eyed and silent.

"Whether you put me on my knees, or I kneel for you of my own accord," Zevran murmurs, "I would enjoy it." He takes a step forward, as non-threatening as he can be. "I would enjoy it quite a lot."

Another step, and another, and he's right in front of Alistair, looking up into dark, wary eyes. "I think," he says, drawing the words out, "that you would enjoy it, too."

He puts a careful hand on Alistair's chest and rubs a soft, slow circle. Under his palm, Alistair's heart is hammering, and his breathing is fast and shallow.

"If you tell me what you want," Zevran says, "I can give it to you."

"Can I kiss you?" Alistair winces as soon as the words are out, looking embarrassed and anxious. "Sorry, that, um, that wasn't what you meant, was it?"

"Why would it not be?" Zevran asks. "Is it something you want?"

Alistair nods mutely.

"In that case," Zevran says, "I believe you have two options."

He pauses, hoping Alistair will be amused by the reference to the last time they were together like this. He's surprised by how relieved he is when Alistair smiles and asks, "Not four?"

"I could think of two more, if you like," Zevran says, "but I think the two I have are sufficient."

Alistair wets his lips, back to looking nervous. "All right."

"If you wish to kiss me," Zevran says, "you will need to do something about our, shall we say, relative heights. Your first option is to lean down to me, though I will say that is not the one I prefer."

"Then what's the second?"

"Strong as you are," Zevran says, touching one hand lightly to Alistair's upper arm, "you could simply pick me up."

Alistair stares down at him, lips parted, looking half panicked.

"Or if four options are so important, I can think of more." Zevran is talking just to talk now, his voice low and his smile free of any hint of mockery. "You could sit, I suppose. That has a certain appeal, as then I could sit in your lap. Ah, and there's the fourth: you could lie down on that very convenient bed."

Alistair leans forward, moving as if through water, to wrap his hands around the backs of Zevran's thighs. If Zevran's weight gives him any trouble, it doesn't show as he straightens, fingers digging in as he lifts Zevran high enough to put them nose to nose.

"Ah, perfect." Zevran wraps his legs around Alistair's waist and his arms around Alistair's neck, pulling himself in closer. With his lips just barely brushing Alistair's, he adds, "Though later, I think we should discuss that fourth option." And then, when Alistair laughs in surprise, Zevran kisses him.

He keeps the kiss...not chaste, but still soft, his tongue stroking Alistair's lower lip, coaxing him to open rather than insisting. Alistair is shaking again, his breath hot on Zevran's mouth, and he seems frozen in place, unwilling or unable to respond.

Zevran pulls back and strokes Alistair's cheek with a gentle finger. "Alistair, dulzura, if you-"

Alistair kisses him, and it's not a bit soft. It's hard, and hungry, and demanding, and the shock of it runs all the way down Zevran's spine. It's more practiced than he would have expected, too; not expert, but not a first kiss, either.

He doesn't bother analyzing it beyond that. He's too busy meeting it and matching it, and then taking it higher. There's the brief taste of blood from a split lip as one of them moves too fast at the wrong moment, but Zevran can't say which of them it came from, and the taste is gone as soon as he recognizes it.

Alistair's hair is too short for Zevran to grab with both hands, so he does the best he can with one and wraps the other around the back of Alistair's neck, wordless encouragement neither of them needs. The kiss is already so rough it's almost violent, a fight Zevran can't lose no matter who wins. Alistair's tongue fucks his mouth, and when he pulls back a fraction of an inch to gasp for air, Zevran follows to bite his lower lip and lick into his mouth in turn.

One of Alistair's hands runs roughly up his bare back, and Zevran arches into the touch, gripping tighter with his legs to compensate. He wants to be naked, wants Alistair's hands everywhere, callouses scraping and fingers leaving bruises while Zevran sucks him, or fucks him, or rides him, anything so long as it's bare skin under his hands and mouth. He's teased himself as much as Alistair for the last four days, and now he wants with a desperation he doesn't usually allow himself.

Alistair breaks the kiss by dragging Zevran's head back with a fist knotted in his hair, and Zevran groans at the stinging pain in his scalp. The sensation is almost immediately drowned out by the fresher, sharper pain of Alistair's teeth on his neck. They're hard bites that start just below his ear and continue all the way down to his shoulder, where Alistair bites so hard the pain tightens Zevran's nipples.

It's what Zevran wants, and it isn't. As glorious as the pain is, there's something else he wants to do, now Alistair is past his earlier nerves.

"Alistair," he gasps, his head pulled so far back his voice is strained.

"Shit," Alistair mutters against Zevran's throat. "Sorry, I just, I wasn't thinking, sorry."

It's apropos of nothing as far as Zevran can tell. "What?"

"I didn't mean to bite so hard," Alistair says. "Sorry, I'll be more careful-"

"Bite as hard as you like," Zevran interrupts him, "as often as you like, but later, please later."

"Later?" Alistair asks. He's breathless and mumbling, his mouth pressed to Zevran's neck. "Not now?"

"Let me kneel for you," Zevran begs. "Put me on my knees, _make_ me kneel for you."

Alistair's shaking is eagerness now, so much he's clumsy with it. Zevran gets his feet under him in time to slow his fall, then Alistair's hands are in his hair, on his shoulder, pushing him down to his knees at the same time Zevran tries to unlace Alistair's trousers. They're in each other's way as much as anything, and the absurdity makes Zevran laugh, breathless and giddy.

When Alistair doesn't laugh with him, Zevran cranes his head around to get a look at his face, needing to be sure Alistair doesn't think he's being mocked.

The look he finds there freezes the laugh in his throat, along with any other hope of breathing. Alistair's expression is a match for his earlier kisses, hungry and desperate, and there it is, the look Zevran wanted to see, all power and commanding presence. A gaze that stakes a claim on him and says, "You're _mine_."

Zevran stares back, burning with need but waiting, because that's a look that won't let him do anything else.

He's not above cheating, though.

"Please," he whispers, "whatever you want, let me give it to you. Fuck my mouth, or let me suck you, or stroke yourself and mark me. Anything, just please, let me give you what you want."

Alistair's hand in his hair flexes and releases him. Before Zevran can be disappointed, Alistair says quietly but clearly, "Suck me."

It's a command more visceral than anything the ring could do, and Zevran is eager to obey, pulling at the last of Alistair's laces. A moment later, he has both hands on Alistair's cock, and a moment after that, his mouth is sliding down the shaft to push his hands aside, until his lips are wrapped around the base and his throat is working around the head.

"Fucking Maker," Alistair breathes out. He grips the back of Zevran's head, holding him in place, then growls, "Look at me."

The angle is terrible, and Zevran can barely make it work, but he's glad when he does. The look on Alistair's face is magnificent, and he's staring down like he's trying to memorize it all, like it's all his to keep and he fully intends to do so. Zevran stares back, mute and helpless, his cock aching, every part of him aching, and he hopes one-tenth of it shows on his face for Alistair to see.

Alistair touches the bite marks he left on Zevran's shoulder, pressing hard enough to send a line of pain from Zevran's shoulder to his cock. He can't moan or even gasp like this, and his own inability to release even that much tension makes it hurt more, makes him want it more. Combined with the lack of air, he's light-headed and floating, willing to float away completely if that's what Alistair wants.

"A demon dream," Alistair murmurs. "You really are a demon dream."

With Zevran's thoughts floating, the words change from compliment to outright praise, the admiration of the only person who matters right now. They mean as much as a nod of approval from one of his strictest instructors.

 _Yes,_ the words whisper to him, as if Alistair said them aloud. _Yes, good, this is good, this is what I want, you're what I want._

The pressure on the back of his head lets up, and Zevran pulls away enough to drag in harsh, deep breaths through his nose. Some of the cloud lifts from his thoughts, but he doesn't try to chase the rest of it away. He likes the way it separates him and Alistair from the rest of the world, so there's nothing but Alistair and Alistair's whispered praise. No distractions to demand his attention, no plans to execute or re-think, no concerns beyond discovering how to please Alistair best.

Alistair makes it so easy, too, with a steady stream of _yes_ and _more_ and _that, again_. Sometimes he takes control, his hand on the back of Zevran's neck or in his hair, but most of the time he just watches Zevran suck his cock. The few glimpses Zevran gets of his face are as good as any praise. Zevran is a demon dream--he's Alistair's demon dream--and he intends to be the kind of dream Alistair never wants to wake up from.

Out of nowhere, both of Alistair's hands bury themselves in Zevran's hair, fists so tight they shake with the strain. Zevran relaxes into it, into the pain and the illusion of powerlessness and the shock of each thrust as his throat is blocked again and again, until Alistair comes, cock pulsing, Zevran's hair caught in his hands and pulled hard with each jerk of his hips.

With a gasp, Alistair pushes him away and slumps back against the door. He stays upright just long enough for Zevran to shove his hair out of his face and wipe his mouth with the back of one hand, then Alistair slides down the door with the slow inevitability of an avalanche. He looks as dazed as Zevran feels, and his lips are a dark, deep red where he bit them to stay quiet, right at the end.

Looking at his mouth, Zevran remembers what it was like to kiss him, and he's crawling into Alistair's lap before he even knows he's going to move. Jerking himself off while kissing Alistair sounds like an excellent plan.

Alistair doesn't seem to agree, and there's a brief, confused struggle as Zevran tries to sit astride Alistair's lap and Alistair tries to turn him around so his back is against Alistair's chest.

"Te quiero besar," Zevran pleads. He can barely get the words in order, and maybe he doesn't get it right, because Alistair is still trying to turn him the other way. "Te necesito besar."

"Zevran," Alistair says, laughing, "I don't speak Antivan."

What?

Shit.

"I want to kiss you," Zevran says. He leaves the other part untranslated, because he doesn't want to think about how true it feels right now.

_I need to kiss you._

Alistair mutters something that sounds like a curse and stops fighting to turn him around, allowing Zevran to straddle him and drag him into a kiss.

Whatever Alistair's reasons for wanting Zevran to sit the other way, they don't have anything to do with reluctance to kiss him. His kisses are less hungry than they were before, but just as enthusiastic, and Zevran whimpers against his mouth. Quietly, in case there's anyone in the hallway, but he needs Alistair to understand how much he wants this.

That whimper becomes a growl of frustration when he reaches for his own laces only to have Alistair shove his hands away. He doesn't think Alistair is being deliberately cruel, but if that's not it, Zevran doesn't know what it is.

"Zevran," Alistair says.

Zevran makes an acknowledging noise and a second attempt to reach the laces of his trousers, an attempt that's no more successful than the first.

"Zevran," Alistair says, more insistent, "Zev, I want to do it, I want to do that for you, but I can't do any of the things you can, and the only one I can, I need you to turn around for it, I can't do it from this angle, not do it right, and I want to do it right, so will you please let me?"

He doesn't so much stop as run out of air, and it's Zevran's turn to laugh. The domineering side of Alistair is the one Zevran wants to see more of, but this side of him has a certain appeal, too. His babbling is endearing when it's eager rather than awkward, and if it's not arousing, it also doesn't drag Zevran back down.

"Anything for you, dulzura," Zevran says. He takes a last kiss, because Alistair is smiling at him and Zevran doesn't need any more excuse than that, then turns so he's reclining against Alistair's chest.

Alistair lifts him up bodily to rearrange them, pulling Zevran high enough for Alistair to reach his cock without straining.

"Show me what you like?" he murmurs in Zevran's ear, and he gives a low hum of approval when Zevran does.

He watches Zevran's hands with his chin propped on Zevran's shoulder, his own hands under Zevran's thighs to hold his legs open. Zevran would have no objection to getting himself off like this, with no more help from Alistair than the quick breaths in his ear and the weight of someone's eyes on him. Well, that, and everything else Alistair has done tonight. Zevran doesn't need more than that.

But he doesn't get the chance. After only a little while, Alistair's hands push his aside and take over. Hesitant at first, but more confident with every passing moment, and yes, he definitely paid attention to what Zevran was doing. Zevran makes no pretense of aloofness: he twists and arches with each touch, driving his cock up into Alistair's hands or grinding his ass down against Alistair's cock, which is growing hard again. That has potential, but not enough Zevran is willing to stop, not when he's so close. Alistair's hands are bigger than his, just the right amount of rough when he works Zevran's cock and gentle when he cups Zevran's balls, and when he bites Zevran's unmarked shoulder, Zevran comes with a gasp, shaking as Alistair strokes him and sucks on one of the bitemarks.

Zevran collapses back, boneless, and only Alistair's arms around him keep him from landing on the floor. Somewhere in the back of Zevran's head, he thinks he should probably move, but he doesn't bother. Sprawled on top of Alistair is a nice place to be, and Zevran is in no hurry to do anything, even after he has his breath back. Alistair seems content to have him there, one hand running idly over Zevran's chest and stomach. Alistair's other hand is curled in a loose fist on Zevran's hip, unmoving but not clenched or tense.

It takes Zevran an embarrassingly long time to realize why Alistair is holding his hand like that, but as soon as he does, he grins. He circles Alistair's wrist with thumb and forefinger, then presses the thumb of his other hand to the heel of Alistair's palm.

But before he can slide his thumb under Alistair's fingers to uncurl them, Alistair's fist tightens.

"You might not want to do that," Alistair warns.

"I promised you a demonstration, did I not?" Zevran asks. "When we were discussing ways to clean up the mess you made of me last time. Since I hope you intend to do it again soon."

"I was going to earlier," Alistair says, only a little embarrassed. "When you were on your knees. But I got distracted by how you looked with my...with your mouth all the way down my...um..."

"You liked how I looked with my mouth full of your cock?" Zevran supplies.

"Maker, yes." Alistair's tone is reverent. "You were beautiful like that. I mean, you're beautiful all the time," he adds hastily. "It's just, I looked down and all I could think about was how much I wanted to, uh, finish like that."

"Finish how?" Zevran asks guilelessly. Alistair stammers for a while, before Zevran takes pity on him and says, "You wanted me on my knees while you fucked my throat, until you came in my mouth and could watch me swallow your seed? Is that what you meant?"

"Fuck," Alistair mutters. His heart is beating faster against Zevran's back, and his cock is hard. "Yeah, that's what I meant." He smooths his free hand over Zevran's thigh. "Is that all right?"

"I have no complaints, let me assure you. And with that in mind..." Zevran uses both of his own hands to uncurl Alistair's fingers and bring the palm to his mouth so he can lick it.

Alistair sucks in a sharp breath at the first touch of his tongue, but he doesn't try to pull his hand away. He simply waits, breathing heavily, as Zevran works. The fingers of Alistair's other hand grip the inside of Zevran's thigh, so firmly they're probably leaving bruises. At least, Zevran hopes they are.

When Alistair's palm is clean, Zevran starts on his fingers, sucking each one thoroughly before moving on to the next. He could stop there, but he doesn't feel like it, so he rolls over and slides down Alistair's body to suck his cock. It's slow this time, and Alistair doesn't take control, just watches through half-lidded eyes as Zevran uses mouth and hands to get him off again. Impossible to say if it's intentional or simply a sign of exhaustion, but he looks like a king accepting what's due to him. Something else for Zevran to think about, the next time he's stroking himself.

Afterward, he rests his cheek on Alistair's thigh while Alistair pets his hair and the cloud in Zevran's head dissipates. As it does, Zevran waits for what always follows those times when he loses track of himself, dreading it less than usual. He's sleepy and satisfied and prepared to consider everything else a more than fair trade for the nausea that will follow soon enough. Very soon. Any moment now.

Until finally he stops waiting to feel sick and starts to actually think.

It's not the first time he's felt that strange floating, as if he's been cut free from both the past and the future. It _is_ the first time he's come down from that place and not felt unclean to one degree or another. There are no new memories of wanting things simply because he was told to want them, or of begging for whatever awful thing someone wanted him to beg for today. There's just...this. Memories of Alistair's face and voice, demanding and commanding, but only things Zevran had already offered. Aches everywhere, but all from things he would ask for again. He would ask for them right now, in fact, if he thought either he or Alistair was capable of them.

Even half drunk on sex and exhaustion, Zevran can identify the important difference. He's just not sure how he feels about it.

"It's late," Alistair says. He makes no move to get up, and his fingers are still toying with Zevran's hair. "I should go."

"Or we could start again," Zevran says, the flirtation automatic.

"Maker," Alistair mutters, "how are you not exhausted?"

"Some things are worth a little sacrifice," Zevran says. He slides his head from under Alistair's hand and sits up to grin at him. "Am I not one of them?"

Alistair studies him thoughtfully, looking far too serious.

Serious and thoughtful aren't what Zevran wants, so he leans over to steal a kiss. "If you like," he says, "I might be persuaded to let you have a nap first."

"How nice of you," Alistair says. He puts a hand in the center of Zevran's chest and pushes him back, but he's laughing as he does it.

"One of my many virtues," Zevran says. He wiggles his eyebrows in the most absurdly lascivious way he can manage and adds, "Would you like me to show you a few of the others?"

"Ugh, no," Alistair says. "I want to fall on my face and sleep for a week."

"That would be a great disappointment to me," Zevran says. "Perhaps you might consider waking up halfway?"

One hand on the wall for support, Alistair hauls himself to his feet, shaking his head and smiling. "You're a pest."

"Alistair," Zevran says, just to make Alistair look at him. When he does, Zevran gives him a slow, sly smile. "I promise to make it worth your while."

"A pest," Alistair repeats. He scrubs both hands over his face and through his hair. "And your mouth is a hazard."

"Another compliment," Zevran says. "You should be careful, I might become insufferable."

"Too late," Alistair says. He starts to put his clothing to rights, pausing only to give Zevran a flat look when Zevran offers to help him with his laces.

It's a flat look with a laugh behind it, though, and when Zevran tries for a goodbye kiss, Alistair doesn't put a stop to it until the kiss starts to get out of hand.

"Sleep well, pest," Alistair says, careful to keep Zevran at arm's length.

"Dulces sueños, dulzura."

Alistair opens his mouth, then closes it, shakes his head, and slips out of the room.

Grinning, Zevran locks the door behind him before blowing out the candle and collapsing into his own bed. For the space of two breaths, his thoughts spin in frantic circles, then it's morning, and Brosca is pounding on his door to call him for breakfast.

He's tired and a little bleary-eyed, more than he would have expected. Maybe he's getting too old to fuck all night and still be alert in the morning, but he'd do it again in a heartbeat. Still, it's a good thing Alistair declined to stay longer. If he'd stayed, Zevran would be in serious danger of falling on his face.

As it is, a little elfroot salve on his neck does wonders for the bite marks, and chewing a few leaves as he gets dressed does wonders for everything else. He gives himself a last once-over in the room's small, dull mirror, then goes out to see what the day will bring. After yesterday, he has high hopes for it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exhibit 6514856182 of the doctoral dissertation on the ways the Crows have fucked with Zevran's expectations for how people will treat him.
> 
> Enjoy?

The day does not live up to Zevran's hopes.

At breakfast, Alistair talks to him even less than usual and won't meet his eyes at all. It's near enough to normal it doesn't draw anyone else's attention, but Zevran had hoped things would have changed between them for the better, and he definitely hadn't expected to be ignored. If Alistair wants to hide what happened from the others, Zevran doesn't care; if Alistair wants to hide it from himself, Zevran cares a great deal and has no interest in playing.

It casts a shadow over otherwise entertaining memories, but Zevran shrugs it off as best he can. If this is the way things will be every time, then better to know now and put as much space as possible between the two of them. Sooner or later, people who want to hide from themselves turn on those they think are to blame for whatever it is inside themselves they hate. At whatever point Alistair's self-loathing turns outward, Zevran would be the obvious target, and that's a dangerous position to be in. It's not the kind of danger he enjoys, either.

He ignores the part of himself that feels the rejection like a slap across the face. He's not hurt, he's...irritated. Yes. Irritated, nothing more.

Alistair's attempts to ignore him don't stop Zevran from continuing the same game he's played for the last four days. He needs some way to pass the time and distract himself from how much he hates the feeling of his body moving against his will. Besides, if Zevran has to be irritated, then Alistair might as well suffer a little, too.

All of which means that when Alistair slips into his room that night, Zevran is both surprised and annoyed.

"I believe you have the wrong room," he says sardonically.

"Isn't this your room?" Alistair asks, starting to smile at what he clearly thinks is a silly game, a deliberate echo of their first encounter with a much more pleasant ending.

"Indeed," Zevran says. Alistair is here earlier tonight than last night, and Zevran is glad: it means Zevran is still mostly dressed, only his feet bare. When facing someone who can force him to do anything--or at least, force him to allow anything to be done to him--he likes the illusion of safety provided by clothing.

Alistair's smile fades as Zevran regards him in cool silence. "All right," Alistair says eventually, "what did I do wrong?"

He looks both concerned and slightly annoyed, and it's the latter that has Zevran arching a disdainful eyebrow at him.

"Are you truly that oblivious?" Zevran asks. Alistair gapes at him, and Zevran makes an irritated noise. "All of today, you did your best to ignore my entire existence. While I neither want nor expect to be swept off my feet at the breakfast table, the same cannot be said for basic courtesies."

"I wasn't ignoring you!" Alistair protests. "Or I guess I was, but I didn't mean to, I was just afraid I'd look at you and you'd smirk, or wink, or something, and everyone would know every single thing we've done." He rakes his hands through his hair in frustration. "Maker's balls, even before we did anything, you'd give me that fucking smile, and I felt like everything I wanted to do to you was written on my forehead."

Zevran considers Alistair and his words for a long time. If Alistair had ever shown himself to be even an adequate liar, or if he was a callous person in general, Zevran wouldn't hesitate to send him away and consider himself well rid of the whole mess. But Alistair has shown no signs of being either of those things, which complicates matters.

At the same time, how well can Zevran really say that he knows Alistair, or what Alistair might do in any given situation? Such as the current one, where Alistair arrived with certain expectations about what would happen tonight. In Zevran's experience, plenty of otherwise-nice people react poorly when things don't go as they expected. That's doubly true when sex is involved, and triply so if they have the power to force others back in line with their expectations. Which Alistair does, here, when he can use the rings and simply take what he wants. Zevran considers it unlikely that would happen, but he's seen some very unlikely things in his life, few of them good.

If that's the route this evening will take, then it's in Zevran's best interests to make things easy on Alistair and thus on himself.

"I'm sorry," Alistair says, breaking into Zevran's thoughts. "I didn't think about how it would look to you, and that's awful."

He looks so thoroughly chagrinned, Zevran is inclined to believe he's sincere. Still, the whole situation has Zevran on edge, no matter what conclusions his rational mind might draw.

If he was going to be afraid of Alistair, that part of him says, it would have made more sense to do it last night, when Alistair was angry. And yet, Zevran spent days provoking last night's anger. There had been a thrill to knowingly baiting a large, hungry predator, and he'd run toward it the way he always runs towards fear. He's having trouble remembering how to do that after spending all day irritated at Alistair's apparent dismissal. Mostly what he wants is to be where Alistair isn't, but he doesn't have that choice when Alistair is in his room. He's as trapped as he is when the ring's magic has hold of him, and his attempts to embrace that fear only leave him sick to his stomach.

"Here," Alistair says eagerly. He steps forward as he says it, putting him almost in arm's reach, and Zevran very deliberately relaxes, ready to go along with whatever Alistair is about to do.

"Give me tomorrow," Alistair says. "I wasn't thinking, that's all, and I can prove it, if you'll just give me another chance tomorrow."

"All right," Zevran says and waits to find out what happens tonight.

Alistair looks off to the side and tugs his earlobe in obvious embarrassment. "But would you do me a favor?"

"Of course." Zevran knows he should smile, or say something light and flirtatious, but for once, he can't think of anything. Less than two months away from the Crows and already he's forgotten how to step outside himself so he doesn't have to care what happens. Appalling.

"Would you not flirt with me?" Alistair asks. "At least, not tomorrow. Or maybe for a few days? It's just, it's really hard to think when you do, and it'd be easier to look at you if I know you're not going to be smirking at me when I do."

Zevran feels as though he stepped on a patch of ice in the middle of a summer day.

"All day today, I kept thinking that if I looked at you, you'd be looking at me like you were thinking about me naked," Alistair goes on, when Zevran doesn't answer. "And I was afraid to find out, so I just didn't look at you at all."

A tiny flicker of Zevran's sense of humor returns. "I promise to be as sober and disapproving as a Chantry mother, from now on."

"Right," Alistair drawls. "That I want to see."

"You shall have that privilege tomorrow," Zevran says. His pulse is beating everywhere, and he has to consciously relax his muscles again. "Few people are so honored."

Alistair grins at him. "I'll keep that in mind." He moves again, but it's toward the door, away from Zevran and without making any effort to touch him.

He pauses at the door, but it's only to give Zevran a last smile and say, "Sleep well."

"Sleep well," Zevran echoes.

When Alistair is gone, Zevran waits for a count of thirty before locking the door and then blocking it with the room's storage chest for good measure. That done, he gets ready for bed with every outward appearance of calm. Even once he blows out the candle and plunges the room into the thick blackness he's found in all Orzammar inns, he closes his eyes and settles himself for sleep as if someone might still be watching.

He doesn't sleep, though. Instead, he lies awake in the dark, trying to understand what happened. After weeks as part of Brosca's little group, he's seen nothing to make him think Alistair was the sort of person who would take what wasn't freely offered. There's no reason for Zevran's heart to pound like he was in real danger, and no reason for him to feel safer with the door blocked.

And yet...

And yet, it still doesn't make sense. Alistair had all the power and no need to fear any consequences: he has to know that Brosca will believe him over Zevran, no matter what. Beyond that, Zevran has already told him yes on two separate occasions and offered to do whatever he might ask. In Zevran's experience, once someone has been told yes, they tend to take all future yes's for granted. And maybe his impression of Alistair is of someone who wouldn't take something he wasn't offered, but Zevran's impressions have been wrong before.

In memory, Rinna and Taliesen grin at him, cheek to cheek and reaching out to draw him toward them.

He bats the memory away, rolls onto his side, and forces himself to sleep.

###

The next day, Alistair is as good as his word, if awkward enough at first to earn a strange look from Brosca. For his part, Zevran has no trouble not smirking or winking, because he's too busy trying not to frown as he searches for any sign he's misread Alistair. It earns Zevran a look of his own from Brosca, but she doesn't say anything to either of them.

Soon enough, Brosca is off to do whatever tasks remain on her list, and Zevran is yet again shut up in a room with three people he's not sure he wants to be shut in with. He still hasn't reached a decision on Alistair, and watching two mages argue magical theory is mind-numbingly boring for a non-mage. Even the small entertainment he's been getting from tormenting Alistair is gone now, blocked by Zevran's own promise not to flirt.

Not to mention his lingering unease from last night, and his annoyance with himself over that same unease. Why decide to fear Alistair _after_ he'd shown the potential to be exactly the sort of lover Zevran would want?

Memories of Alistair's hand in his hair cascade through Zevran's head: Alistair pushing him away, pulling him closer, holding him in place. Doing nothing except petting him, strong fingers combing through sweat-damp strands as Zevran drifts back down from that place where he would have willingly done anything Alistair asked. Alistair hadn't asked for anything Zevran hadn't already offered, but how much of that was because he didn't know how much power he'd held?

Of course, he doesn't know how much he could have asked for precisely because he didn't ask.

Zevran is tired of the whole internal debate before they're even an hour into the day's experiments, but he's no closer to picking it all apart. On top of that, he still has to get through an unknown number of days with no one to talk to, and nothing to do now that he can no longer tease Alistair. It's uncomfortably reminiscent of a particular form of torture the Crows inflicted on him, and he finds himself lining up the strategies they taught him for withstanding it.

A little while after Zevran has settled into counting the stones on the wall, Alistair excuses himself and leaves the room without explanation. Zevran assumes he's headed for the privy, or perhaps the kitchen to wheedle a snack from the cook, and doesn't think anything more about it.

Until the door re-opens with a bang, startling everyone.

"Sorry," Alistair says. "I didn't mean to push so hard."

Zevran turns to look, then blinks. Alistair is sidling through the doorway, carrying a chair in one hand and a book in the other, frowning in concentration as he maneuvers in a space barely large enough.

He smiles his thanks when Zevran takes the chair, but that leaves Zevran standing in the middle of the room, unsure where Alistair wants it. The room isn't large, and there's one chair already against a wall, which doesn't leave a lot of space for the one in his hands.

"There's fine," Alistair says, waving toward the floor in front of the other chair. "Or really, wherever you want it."

Baffled, Zevran puts the chair where Alistair indicated, then sits when Alistair gestures for him to do so. With the placement of the chairs and the size of the room, it puts the two of them knee to knee when they're both seated. If Zevran were still trying to flirt, he would be mentally rubbing his hands in anticipation. Since he's trying to avoid flirting, the position borders on uncomfortable.

"Sorry," Alistair says again. "I know it's kind of cramped."

And then he says nothing else, just sits staring at his hands as they turn the book around and around.

"You had your reasons, I assume?" Zevran asks.

"Yeah, it's just, now it sounds silly."

"Well, having come this far," Zevran says, "you might as well see it through to the bitter end."

Alistair smiles awkwardly. "I thought, since there's not much else to do, I could read to you. If they need me to do something, I can make you raise your arms in the air or something. There's no reason you have to move around when all they need is for the spell to be active."

Zevran stares at him, taken completely aback. His first reaction is to point out that he's capable of reading to himself, but he has a feeling it will come out with more of a bite to it than he wants.

He's still working on his second reaction.

"This has to be pretty boring for you," Alistair says. "And, I guess I got to thinking how much I'd hate it if I had to just sit around and wait for someone to magically take control of my body and make me do whatever they wanted. I'd want a way to take my mind off it as much as I could." He makes a face, embarrassed. "Sorry for not thinking about it sooner."

"Alistair," Wynne calls, "I realize this would be a very rude request in other circumstances, but in the current ones, and given what we're trying to-"

"Stop talking," Morrigan interrupts. "We want you to stop talking so we can concentrate."

Zevran heaves an internal sigh of disappointment. Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

Alistair gives an embarrassed cough and shuffles his feet nervously, but to Zevran's surprise, he says, "No. Sorry, but...no."

Morrigan and Wynne stare at him with matching expressions of shocked disbelief. Zevran hopes his own face doesn't look the same.

Alistair coughs again, once, but his chin is out and he doesn't drop his gaze. "It's not right," he says. "Zevran has to sit here with nothing to do all day, and on top of that, he's got to let me order him around whenever you want. We'll keep our voices down, but...but you can't tell him he has to put up with all that _and_ he's not allowed to talk."

Morrigan looks annoyed, while Wynne looks as taken aback as Zevran feels. Zevran appreciates the company.

He also appreciates how neatly Alistair has backed Wynne into a corner, though it's unclear if he understood what he was doing. His choice of argument, however, is perfect, and Wynne can't do anything but acquiesce. As a compromise, Alistair agrees to keep his voice down, Zevran half a step behind with the same promise, so bemused by the whole thing he almost misses his cue.

The next question becomes whether Alistair would have made that agreement if he'd thought about how close they have to sit for Zevran to hear him properly. They can't sit facing each other, not unless they want matching sore backs from bending forward for hours. The only good option is to sit shoulder to shoulder, feet and knees and elbows occasionally bumping as one or the other of them shifts position.

As they finish settling, Alistair shoots a quick glance at Wynne and Morrigan, who are absorbed in their debate. Satisfied they're not paying attention, he turns his head slightly in Zevran's direction and says softly, "When I asked you not to flirt, I swear I didn't plan to set you up for failure."

He smiles tentatively, and Zevran smiles back. "You malign my self-control," he says. He pauses a beat, then adds with a small smirk that he hopes isn't bending his promise too much, "Though I admit, you have provided me with a great many temptations."

Alistair turns red and looks hastily down at the book, but Zevran catches a glimpse of his smile before he hides it. "Yeah, um, sorry?"

"Why?" Zevran asks. "Do I seem put out by any of this?"

"Ah, no," Alistair says. In a blatant effort to change the subject, he flips open the cover of the book and says, "I borrowed this from Leliana, but I forgot to ask what it's about. I just checked that it wasn't written in Orlesian."

"If it was, I could have read it to you," Zevran says. "And for that matter, I can read to myself, as well. Perhaps you could read to me when the magic means I cannot?"

"I'm not all that great at reading aloud," Alistair says, "but I thought, if I just read aloud the whole time, it wouldn't feel so much like a change when they need me to make you do something. If they want you to hold still, then you can stay there and pretend you're holding still because you want to, and if they want you to move, you can pretend you're stretching your arms. Instead of having to hand the book off to me every time."

Zevran turns his hand palm up and makes a small gesture at the book. "Then by all means, please."

Despite his words, he misses the first few pages because he's too busy trying to organize his thoughts. That Alistair thought of this at all is sweet; that he did the work to make it happen, kind. That he thought it through so thoroughly is a level of consideration Zevran isn't sure how to handle.

Ignoring it all is by far the preferable option, especially when it would be ungrateful to leave Alistair reading to an inattentive audience.

As Alistair himself admitted, he isn't especially gifted at reading aloud, but he does his best. Every few pages, something he reads will prompt him to make an aside, which inevitably leads him off on a tangent. Sometimes Zevran drags them further off topic and sometimes he just listens, but either way, he enjoys those digressions more than he enjoys the story itself, which is a rather predictable romance between two characters he feels no special attachment to.

Even the most boring parts of the story are a thousand times better than counting stones in the wall, though.

Late in the morning, Alistair's voice starts to go. Zevran thinks that will be the end of it, but after a little while, Wynne comes over and touches Alistair's shoulder. He takes a deep breath, and his voice is smooth again when he says, "Thanks."

"Of course," she murmurs. "And, Zevran, I'm sorry. Alistair is right, and I should have thought of it days ago."

"I never thought of it either," he says. The Crows taught him to endure torture, not ask someone to read him a story to make it less torturous. It hadn't crossed his mind that he wasn't limited to whatever distractions he could think up on his own.

Alistair, apparently, is the only one of the four of them who bothered to think about it at all.

By the time they break for lunch, Zevran is a little stiff and sore from sitting so long in a hard chair, but that's all. He's not sick to his stomach, or restless to the point of pain, or even mildly irritated. He follows Alistair down the hall, but at the point where they would normally split off, each to their own room, Alistair clears his throat and says tentatively, "We could eat together. If you want."

Zevran glances at him. "Where?"

"In the common room," Alistair says, and by the look on his face, he's only now realizing how his invitation sounded. A blush crawls slowly up the back of his neck as he adds, "Unless you want to eat in...in my room?"

Zevran weighs last night's fears against the realities of today. "Which would you rather?"

Alistair hems and haws for a moment. "I meant the common room when I asked," he says at last, "but, um, I wouldn't mind eating in my room?"

For just a moment, Zevran tries to imagine this man forcing him to do anything, but the idea seems more ridiculous the longer he thinks about it. He can't even imagine Alistair pushing him to read a book he doesn't want to read, forget anything more dire.

There's no one else in the hallway, so Zevran reaches out to brush his thumb across Alistair's lips, smiling at his surprised inhale. "Then your room it will be, dulzura."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, let's be real: this entire story is a dissertation on all the ways the Crows fucked with Zevran's head. But for a little variety, this time we also get to see how other people fucked with Alistair's head. Mindfucks all around!

The chair that belongs in Alistair's room is still back in Morrigan's, and even if it wasn't, Zevran has spent the whole morning in it. Sitting on the edge of the bed beside Alistair, with the storage chest in front of them to hold their food and drink, is a welcome change. Alistair keeps shooting him shy, hopeful glances, the sort of thing Zevran would expect from someone before they fucked, not after. He's not sure what to make of it now, so he concentrates on eating.

Once the food is demolished, Zevran pulls off his boots and stretches out on Alistair's bed. Alistair himself hasn't moved from where he sat to eat, and he's watching Zevran now with a wary expression Zevran doesn't understand any better than his earlier shyness.

"What are you thinking about so hard, dulzura?" he asks, swinging his legs up into Alistair's lap.

Alistair startles and raises his hands out of the way, then doesn't seem to know what to do next. "What's that mean?" he asks distractedly.

"Dulzura? It means sweet, or sweetness."

"Sweet?" Alistair demands. At least it gets enough of his attention that he lets his hands drop to rest on Zevran's legs, which is where Zevran wanted them. "Really?"

Zevran has to fight not to smile. "Is there something wrong with being sweet?"

"No," Alistair says, but he doesn't look happy. He rallies a moment later. "Or yes, actually. You like it when I, um, take control, and...well, that doesn't really fit with sweet, does it?"

"Not precisely, no," Zevran allows. "And yet, you need not be that person all the time."

"Which one? Sweet, or...not sweet?"

"Yes," Zevran says.

Alistair makes an exasperated noise and pinches Zevran's calf lightly. "Pest."

"If I do not complain about the pet name you decided on for me," Zevran says, "then you cannot complain about the one I decided on for you."

"I don't see why not," Alistair says. He starts to stroke Zevran's leg, long slow strokes from knee to ankle. His fingers occasionally brush bare skin below the cuff of Zevran's trousers, and every time they do, Zevran feels it in places not normally connected to his ankles.

"Shall I think of another name to call you," he asks, "when you are, let us say, more commanding?"

"I can't decide which is worse," Alistair mutters. "The thought of you calling me sweetness when I'm shoving you to your knees, or the thought of what else you might pick."

"Mi rey?" Zevran suggests. "My king."

Something flashes across Alistair's face, an expression Zevran can't decipher before it's gone. Much easier to understand Alistair's hard, flat, "No."

It's not a tone that invites teasing, at least not on that subject, so Zevran backtracks. "Perhaps I like your sweetness," he says, making the words as suggestive as possible.

Alistair flushes but otherwise ignores the innuendo. "I just..." He trails off, scowling at his hand on Zevran's knee like it's offended him. "It feels like you're making fun of me, and I used to get teased for being too nice. When I was in templar training, and before, when I was still at Redcliffe. Eamon used to try to toughen me up sometimes. He said I was too soft."

"I do not recall inviting Eamon into bed with us," Zevran says with an easy smile. "And so how sweet you are or are not matters only to you and to me."

" _Does_ it matter to you?" Alistair asks.

"Have you heard me complain?" Zevran counters with a smile. "Either when you were sweet or when you were not?"

"No," Alistair says, but he doesn't sound convinced. He stares at his hand for a while before he finally asks, "Is that really what you think? That I'm sweet?"

His tone is difficult to read; Zevran can tell that the answer matters to him, but not what he wants it to be.

"Certainly sweeter than most of those I've met," Zevran hedges.

"Even knowing that I want...all the things I want?" Alistair's mouth twists unhappily. "All the things I shouldn't want?"

"Why should you not?" Zevran asks. "Because your Chantry says so?"

"I'm pretty sure the Chant doesn't say anything about it," Alistair says, "but people...well, people have a lot to say, don't they?"

"Not to Crows, no," Zevran says. "Our sexual tastes are not what they tend to criticize."

Alistair snorts a surprised laugh. "All right, yeah, not to Crows, and maybe not in Antiva, but here?" He shakes his head. "Yeah. People treat you differently when they know you want to do the kinds of things I want to do to you."

Zevran would like to know more about those things, but he says only, "You seem very certain, but I was under the impression this part of you was something private." Something secret. "Is it possible that others might not react so badly as all that, if you were to let them see?"

"They treat you differently," Alistair says, quiet but sure. His gaze moves from his hand on Zevran's knee to his other hand where it rests on Zevran's leg just above the ankle. It doesn't escape Zevran's notice that the change lets Alistair turn a little away, hiding most of his face.

"There was this girl I liked, when I was sixteen, " Alistair says. "Another recruit."

Somehow, Zevran doesn't think this story is going to end well, but he just nods.

"She was like you," Alistair goes on.

"Perfect?"

One corner of Alistair's mouth pulls up in a brief smile. "You know what I meant. She liked it when I would grab her wrists, or her hair. We never really made it much beyond kissing, so I don't know if she liked...other things as much as you do, but she liked that."

Which explains where Alistair learned to kiss. Zevran would feel kindly disposed toward that unknown, unnamed girl, except that he can guess where this story is going.

"She was small," Alistair says, "a lot smaller than you. So small new instructors tried to send her to the wrong classes sometimes. She always thought that was hilarious."

Hilarity isn't what Alistair is feeling right now: it's written in the tense line of every muscle and the sharp crease between his eyebrows. Zevran touches his hand, and tries not to take it personally when Alistair pulls it away, out of reach.

"She liked that I was so much bigger than her," Alistair says. "That even if she could kick my ass all over the practice ring, I was still bigger and stronger. And I liked it, too."

Zevran braces himself for the inevitable ending of the story. There are really only two places it can go, given where the conversation started, and neither ending is pleasant.

"Anyway," Alistair says, the word more like a sigh. "We got caught. Which happens all the time, and I think most recruits just get a lecture about pregnancy and not being stupid, but...I had her hands behind her back. Just holding them there, she could have pulled away without half trying, but you can't tell that by looking, can you?"

Zevran is pretty sure he could, but this doesn't seem like the time to say so. At least now he knows which way the story will end, so he can try to decide how to respond.

Alistair rubs the bridge of his nose, hiding even more of his face. "I think the only reason I didn't get in real trouble was because she kept insisting she was fine, that she'd liked it. And everyone knew she was twice the fighter I was. Am."

That catches Zevran by surprise, at least a little. So there was a third possible ending to the story, one he hadn't even considered, though the result is the same either way. He does feel the need to direct a silent apology to the girl for his earlier assumptions about her, as well as a mental bow only lightly tinged with sarcasm. The sarcasm is for himself, anyway: it never crossed his mind that someone might accept a punishment they could avoid, simply because it was the right thing to do. In that, at least, she's far more like Alistair than Zevran.

He isn't sure if he wants to meet her, or if she and Alistair together would be too much honest, earnest sincerity for him.

Alistair takes a slow, deep breath and lets it out just as slowly, dropping his hand back to Zevran's knee. "I know what it looked like, and I know why the instructors reacted like they did. I can even be glad they take that kind of thing seriously." His mouth compresses briefly into a thin, hard line. "But it was awful, and ugly, and it dragged on for weeks, because after she convinced them I wasn't doing anything she didn't want, we _both_ got lectured about it. By the time they got done, we both felt like complete shit, her for liking it and me for doing it."

"Dulzura," Zevran begins, only to have Alistair interrupt him.

"That's why I don't like you calling me sweet," Alistair says. "Part of the reason, anyway. One of the instructors said something about what a sweet boy I'd seemed, like it was all an act or something. I try really hard not to think about anything they said to either of us, but that stuck in my head. Like, I'm disgusting, and a liar, _and_ a disappointment."

"Ah." It's the only thing Zevran can think to say at first. He knew there were people like that in the world, determined to make others conform to their narrow definition of sex, but he's always done his best to avoid them. "Yes, I can see why dulzura was a poor choice. My apologies."

"You didn't know," Alistair says. "And it's stupid to let it get to me, but-"

"Not stupid," Zevran says firmly, drowning out the rest of Alistair's sentence.

It gets Alistair to look at him again, though only from the corner of one eye. "If someone said any of that to you, you'd laugh at them. Or flirt just to make them uncomfortable."

He's not wrong: Zevran is who and what the Crows made him, and they wanted someone who could use sex as a weapon. Depending on the situation, Zevran might pretend to be shamed by someone like those templars, but it would be an act, and one he wouldn't maintain for a moment longer than necessary.

That doesn't make Alistair a fool for wanting his instructors' approval. The problem is finding a way to convince Alistair of that.

Zevran is still working on it when Alistair says brightly, "I did a good job of making that awkward, didn't I? Let's talk about something else."

If Zevran had any idea what to say on the current topic, maybe he would pursue it, but he doesn't, and he does like to see Alistair smile.

"Shall we talk about what I could call you instead of dulzura?"

"You could use my name." Alistair turns a little more toward him, and there's the beginnings of a smile on his face. "That usually works."

"But anyone can call you by your name," Zevran says. He gives Alistair a sly smile. "Perhaps I would rather have something that's mine and only mine."

"Right," Alistair says. "Or you'd rather have something to annoy me with."

"I hardly need a pet name for that," Zevran says, and it pleases him when Alistair laughs.

"You don't," Alistair says. After a deliberate pause, he adds pointedly, "Pest."

"Am I truly such a pest?" Zevran asks, ignoring the small part of him that means the question seriously, rather than simply as a joke to tease Alistair.

"I don't know," Alistair says, "are we talking about right now, or a week ago?"

"Personally, I was thinking of the night before last," Zevran says with as innocent an expression as he can manage.

True to form, Alistair blushes. "Ah, right. Yes. That."

"I must have done a truly terrible job," Zevran says, mock sadly, "for it to be so forgettable."

"If it was terrible, wouldn't I remember it because of that?" Alistair asks.

"And you call me a pest?" Zevran demands. "Besides, I would rather be terrible than forgettable."

Alistair rolls his eyes, but his hand is stroking Zevran's leg again, warm through the fabric of his trousers. "It was the opposite of terrible, and you know it."

"Possibly," Zevran says with a smile. "But I fail to see what my knowledge has to do with anything."

"So you want me to just tell you things you already know?"

"If they involve complimenting me?" Zevran asks. "Of course."

"You really are a pest," Alistair says. He's grinning and shaking his head, and suddenly Zevran feels like there's far too much space between them. He wants the closeness they had for those few hours before Alistair's embarrassment and Zevran's Crow training got in the way. He wants someone to touch him because they want to, not by accident, or because he's injured, or because they're trying to kill him. That's all he's had for months, at least until the other night, and for the first time, he realizes how much he's missed having more.

The easiest way to get more is to crawl into Alistair's lap, so Zevran does, even knowing what assumptions Alistair will make about his reasons. It's a fair trade: he'll suck Alistair's cock, and in return, Alistair will touch him and look at him like he's something incredible. Like he's a demon dream, the one thing Alistair wants most in the world. They both get what they want, and if Zevran times it right, he can get Alistair off just as Wynne and Morrigan return from their own meal, leaving no time for Alistair to feel like he has to reciprocate.

At the moment, Alistair looks more startled than aroused, his hands hovering near Zevran's waist without touching him. It amuses Zevran maybe more than it should, watching the distrustful part of himself struggle to maintain its hold in the face of Alistair's refusal to do any of the things Zevran expects.

The word dulzura is on the tip of Zevran's tongue again, and how did that become a habit so quickly? It suits Alistair, yes, but less than three days shouldn't be enough for it to imprint itself on Zevran's mind so thoroughly.

Before Zevran can work his way past his own bemusement at the two of them, Alistair says, "So I guess this means you're not mad at me anymore?"

Startled, Zevran leans back enough to see his face. "If I gave the impression I was angry, I apologize. You said nothing wrong."

"Not today," Alistair says. He lowers his hands cautiously, resting them on Zevran's hips. "Last night."

"Ah." Zevran has no interest in voicing any of last night's fears, or in the conversation that would follow if he were foolish enough to do it. "I was annoyed, perhaps, but certainly not angry."

"Oh," Alistair says, looking sheepish. "Then never mind." His hands on Zevran's hips shift, like he started to fidget and then stopped himself. "I just thought you were, that's all."

"What made you think so?" Zevran asks lightly, to distract himself from his own desire to wrap himself around Alistair like one of those sea creatures with too many arms. The idea is to be seductive, not to cling like he's drowning.

"I wasn't sure," Alistair says. His voice hitches at the end, when Zevran brushes a kiss against his cheek, but he swallows and keeps going. "I just wondered, because you're usually very, um, you like touching, and last night you didn't try to touch me at all."

Suddenly, it's no longer difficult to think about something other than seducing Alistair. Zevran is very glad his face is hidden from this angle, because he has a feeling it's giving away more than it should.

"That sounded bad, didn't it?" Alistair asks. "Like you have to touch me or something, and I didn't mean it like that. I just wondered, last night, and then later I thought about how you didn't call me dulzura either, and even if I don't like being called sweet, I like that you want to call me that, which I know doesn't make any sense, but-"

"Alistair," Zevran says, cutting short what's slid into nervous babbling while he sat frozen.

The problem is that, having stopped Alistair, Zevran is now supposed to say something. Which requires he have some idea of what that something should be.

Crow training tells him that distraction is always a good tactic, so he gets control over his expression and leans back enough to cup Alistair's face in both hands. Zevran had planned to kiss him so he stops thinking too much about what happened last night and why Zevran might have done what he did, but he looks down into Alistair's face and hesitates. Alistair is braced like he's waiting to be teased, self-conscious and embarrassed for a mistake that wasn't a mistake. It's becoming clear that his life hasn't been overflowing with praise or validation, and Zevran hates making him think he's been wrong yet again.

"I was a little angry," Zevran admits. "I simply saw no point in saying so now."

"I really didn't mean to ignore you," Alistair says. "Yesterday, I mean."

"I know," Zevran says. "And it seemed pointless to tell you I had been angry about something you never intended."

"I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry." Zevran strokes a thumb along Alistair's cheekbone. "It was a mistake, and one you corrected as soon as you knew. I know that not everyone can be as perfect as myself."

To his relief, that wins him a smile, and he runs his thumb lightly across Alistair's lips so he can feel them curving up.

"I'm glad," Alistair begins, then has to clear his throat so he can try again. "I'm glad I could fix it, and that you're not mad at me anymore, but...but I'd rather know? That you were mad at me. Or anything else."

"If all is well now," Zevran asks, puzzled, "what purpose does it serve to bring it up again? Especially a matter like this, when you already saw the mistake?"

Alistair frowns in thought. "I don't know. I can't explain it, but I'd still rather you told me." He shrugs one shoulder, embarrassed again. "I just want to know."

Expecting a Crow to be honest is breathtakingly naïve, but that's something Zevran already knew about Alistair. Those earnest eyes almost make him want to be honest, too, which is uncomfortable to say the least. But not as uncomfortable as the thought of Alistair's face if Zevran were foolish enough to explain all the reasons Zevran had been glad to see him go last night.

Zevran has no intention of being that honest, but he also doesn't want to lie and agree to tell Alistair everything. It's a promise he knows he won't be able to keep, and promises matter to Alistair, more than they ever have to Zevran. Too many years spent bending words to mislead people have left him skeptical of anything except what someone does when they think no one is watching. He's been that unseen watcher too many times, and he's seen behind too many masks.

But if he doesn't want to lie, and he doesn't want to tell the truth, that really only leaves one option.

When Zevran kisses him, Alistair's hands tighten, his fingers digging in painfully hard. In contrast, his mouth is soft, lips parting at the touch of Zevran's tongue but otherwise motionless. If he wasn't also pinning Zevran in place on his lap, Zevran would wonder if he was only tolerating the kiss, too polite to reject it outright. With that grip, though, he doesn't seem to be in any hurry for Zevran to leave him alone.

The kiss is supposed to put them back on the right track, the one that leads to Zevran's mouth on Alistair's cock, but somehow, they don't make it any further. There's an unexpectedly-soothing warmth to this: Alistair's hands firm on his hips, and Alistair's mouth soft in a kiss that circles back on itself rather than moving toward harder kisses and hands on bare skin. It's exactly what Zevran wanted, Alistair's hands on him even if through a few layers of cloth, but Zevran knows he'll lose the chance to have this again later, if he doesn't make sure Alistair gets something in return now. And Zevran will do that, he really will, in just another moment.

That moment still hasn't arrived by the time footsteps and voices in the hall announce Wynne and Morrigan returning from wherever they went for their meal. They're not especially loud, but alarm jolts Zevran anyway. He's done none of the things he'd planned to do, and while he can stall for a little longer, he can't stall for long enough.

Shit.

Alistair sighs in disappointment, and Zevran winces internally. Perhaps he can make it seem like he's teased Alistair on purpose, a promise of what will happen tonight?

Or maybe he doesn't need to do anything. Disappointed sigh or no, Alistair smiles when Zevran leans back enough to see his face. It's a real smile, shy and happy and oddly hopeful, and Zevran doesn't know what to do with the warm glow it starts in his chest, except to kiss Alistair again, one last time.

One last time _for now_ , Zevran reminds himself as he pulls away from Alistair and stands up. In the meantime...

"Shall we return to our appointed task?"

Alistair grimaces but says, "Yeah, I guess." Then he scrubs both hands roughly over his face and sighs. "Assuming I can manage _not_ to look like I've been doing exactly what we've been doing."

His face is a little flushed and his mouth too red. Even without those signs, Zevran can picture him avoiding anyone's eyes and generally looking guilty of something. Two questions from Wynne, and Alistair will crack like an egg. As much effort as Alistair has put into keeping this part of himself secret, Zevran would hate to see it all fall apart because of a surplus of honesty.

"Here is what we shall do," Zevran says. "I will join Wynne and Morrigan now, and give them reason to believe I have passed the time doing rather more than what you and I have been doing." He gives Alistair a wink. "With someone other than you, of course."

"All right," Alistair says. Despite his agreeable tone, there's an odd expression on his face that Zevran can't identify before it's gone. The best he can say is that it's not jealousy or possessiveness.

"Give it perhaps half an hour," Zevran goes on. "Then join us and explain that you lay down for a nap and overslept. If you can spend that half hour actually lying down, so much the better."

"You know I'm a terrible liar, right?"

Zevran shoots him an amused look. "I had come to that conclusion, yes. Thus my choice of lie. Let them think the signs of a terrible liar are those of someone embarrassed to be late in reporting to his post. Lying down will give it those little touches that add verisimilitude, I will distract them as soon as your lie is told, and they wish to be about their experiments anyway. The lie need only be plausible enough to pass a cursory inspection, and then it will all be forgotten."

Alistair looks skeptical, but he doesn't argue, and he doesn't try to stop Zevran from leaving.


	8. Chapter 8

A little more than half an hour later, Zevran murmurs to Alistair, "See? As simple as that."

"I can't believe that worked," Alistair mutters back. They're once again seated in their chairs, shoulders brushing so they can talk quietly. "I thought Wynne would see right through me."

"People see what they expect to see," Zevran says. He glances over, but Wynne and Morrigan are absorbed in their current argument, so he adds, "They see me return from a bit of fun with one of our fellow patrons, and they see you embarrassed for oversleeping. Each story fits, and thus they look no further."

"It can't be that easy."

"It usually is," Zevran says. "The best lie is one that matches what the listener wants to believe. Show people what they expect, and you can lie about nearly anything."

Alistair gives him a sideways look that Zevran can't interpret from this angle. "Anything?"

"Very nearly, yes."

"Even..." Alistair stops, his gaze jumping briefly to Wynne and Morrigan, then to Zevran, then back to the book open in his lap. "Even, um, things like what we've been doing?"

Normally Zevran would say, "Fucking?" just to see Alistair blush, but he has no desire to draw attention, and that's an attention-getting word. And even if it didn't risk catching Wynne's or Morrigan's ear, Zevran still wouldn't say it: he's too busy running through all the ways he could answer.

Because now he understands that sideways look, and he knows Alistair's question isn't nearly as abstract as his words make it sound. Alistair isn't asking if people lie about sex; even he isn't so naïve or inexperienced as to think they don't. He also isn't asking if people lie about wanting sex, or about wanting a particular person. His question is far more specific: he's asking if Zevran is lying about wanting him.

From anyone else, Zevran would assume the question was rooted in self-protective fear, the understandable concern that a Crow might feign interest in order to use a target's desire like a ring in a bull's nose. But this isn't anyone else; this is Alistair, and Zevran is beginning to learn that Alistair's fears are rarely for himself, even when it should be otherwise.

It makes Zevran wonder uneasily how much Alistair actually saw last night. It's clear he doesn't have the slightest suspicion as to what Zevran was thinking, but that might mean less than Zevran assumed. Were his fear and reluctance clear enough for Alistair to sense them, if only at a level below conscious awareness? He saw Zevran's anger, after all, even if he has so little self-confidence that he doubted himself at the first hint he might have been wrong. Zevran doesn't like the idea of being so transparent, but it's too late to do anything about yesterday. He'll just have to be more careful in the future. In the meantime, reassuring Alistair is more important than it has any right to be.

As soon as he's thought that, Zevran shrugs it away. Of course he wants to keep Alistair happy: it greatly increases Zevran's chances of getting his throat fucked again. Now he just has to figure out how to answer the real question, rather than the one Alistair asked aloud. It would be easier if he knew for sure whether Alistair's fear is for himself or for Zevran. Normally Zevran would assume the former, but given Alistair's underdeveloped sense of self-preservation, that assumption isn't necessarily safe. If Alistair really did sense Zevran's fear last night, then he could easily be worrying that Zevran has said yes not because he wants to but because he feels he can't say no, especially given the rings and the games they've been playing.

So.

"Allow me to answer your question by asking three in return," Zevran says.

"All right," Alistair says warily.

"One. Which of us approached the other to begin these 'things like what we've been doing'?"

 _I approached you,_ Zevran thinks, hoping Alistair understands. _You never pressed me for anything, not even unintentionally._

That Zevran would have said yes last night, for the very reason Alistair is worrying about, is nothing Zevran wants him to know.

Alistair opens his mouth to reply but stops when Zevran raises a finger.

"Let me ask all three, then you may answer." He waits for Alistair's nod before continuing, "My second question: was our initial...exchange something you expected?"

That question could rebound and hit Zevran in the face, but he's reasonably sure Alistair expected nothing of the sort. And if he had no expectations, then how could Zevran use them against him?

"And third," Zevran says, after a brief pause to allow Alistair to digest the first two questions, "do you truly wish to discuss this here and now?"

That startles Alistair into a laugh, which draws annoyed looks from Wynne and Morrigan. Both mages turn immediately back to their discussion, though, so Zevran ignores them and says to Alistair, "Now you may answer."

Alistair is red-faced but still grinning. "You, sort of, and no."

Zevran has to think back to how he phrased his questions, then he raises both eyebrows. Maybe that question will bloody his nose after all. "'Sort of?' You sort of expected me to invite myself into your bed?"

After a glance to be sure Wynne and Morrigan didn't hear, Alistair says, "Is hoped the same as expected?"

"Close cousins," Zevran allows, "but not the same. People are more skeptical of hope, especially if they doubt the chances of their hope becoming reality."

"Right," Alistair says. "Then I guess that makes the answers you, no, and no."

"Alistair?" Wynne calls. "If you would, please."

"Think on your own answers," Zevran says quietly. He shifts to a more comfortable position in the chair, one he doesn't mind being in for a long period of time. "But while you do that, you should also do as our beautiful enchantress has requested."

"I don't know how you're so calm about this," Alistair says. "I'd have gone crazy after the first day."

There are several ways Zevran could answer that, but only one isn't a terrible idea. Admitting to how much he hates this won't change anything, except that Alistair will feel worse about something he'll have to do anyway. Explaining that the Crows did far worse would likewise do nothing except make Alistair miserable.

"It must be done," Zevran says with a casual shrug. "And it is not so bad as all that. Uncomfortable, yes, but at least no longer boring, now I have your story to listen to."

The irony of lying to Alistair so soon after explaining how to lie doesn't escape Zevran. If he felt like undermining his own efforts, it would even make a perfect example, because it's a lie Alistair wants to believe. He's a good person, and he doesn't want to think that he's doing something Zevran hates, and this is a lie that allows him to reconcile the conflict between those positions.

To Alistair's credit, he doesn't look entirely convinced, but he lets it go. "Don't move," he says without enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm isn't required, as they discovered days ago. Magic takes control of Zevran's body and freezes him in place, holding him more effectively than any rope or chain. His stomach twists, but Alistair can't see that, and Zevran can suppress every other reaction.

At least Alistair resumes reading aloud, giving Zevran something to concentrate on. It makes the afternoon if not pleasant, then at least tolerable, which also makes it roughly a hundred times better than any of the other afternoons he's spent as the subject of Wynne and Morrigan's experiments. He's glad to escape the room at the end of the day, but he doesn't feel like he's leaving a cell where he's been imprisoned for weeks while the Crow masters taught him how to withstand some torture or other.

It leaves him with an hour or so of free time before supper, something he isn't used to having. Usually he spends the time napping in his room, using sleep to clear away the nausea and all the memories stirred up during the day, but he feels only vaguely queasy this afternoon. Even that much is gone by the time he's stretched the stiffness from his muscles, and he considers trying to sneak into Alistair's room. It's what he should do, given the role he's been playing so far.

A role that doesn't feel like a role, if he's honest, and that more than anything is what keeps him in his own room. He stretches out on his bed and stares at the ceiling, turning today and yesterday and all of the last month over in his head so he can draw a picture of Alistair, the same way he would of a target he's been spying on. His picture of Alistair is a sketch rather than a finished painting, but it's more than Zevran had on plenty of targets, and it forms a cohesive whole, without the skewed lines or missing pieces that could mean Alistair was hiding something important.

Something important to Zevran, anyway, because for the first time in his life, he doesn't have to care about anything else. Alistair could be keeping any of a hundred secrets--he could be an Orlesian spy, or the heir to a vast fortune, or a werewolf in disguise--but none of them matter to Zevran. The only thing that does is the knowledge that becomes more certain with every hour he spends in Alistair's company: of all Brosca's group, Alistair is probably the one least likely to hurt him deliberately.

When Zevran wanted a pet name for him, there's a reason dulzura was the first that came to mind. The scars on Zevran's arm are as much Zevran's fault as Alistair's, and entirely an accident.

His thoughts in order for the first time in far too long, Zevran joins the others for supper in the common room. It's crowded tonight, much as it's been every night, and Zevran lets the noise wash over him. Before the Crows, he grew up in a place like this, and after the Crows bought him, visits to inns and taverns were often bright spots in otherwise painful years of training. He could never relax, but he could laugh and joke and flirt, and by the end of an evening, he could usually find someone who wanted to do more than flirt.

Since he promised not to flirt with Alistair, Zevran finds another target among the inn's other patrons. He picks his target carefully, finally settling on an older, married woman whose husband is almost as amused by Zevran's outrageous flirting as the woman herself. She flirts back easily while her husband mostly just listens to their exchanges, occasionally hiding a smile behind his mug. As readily as she flirts, there's nothing in her smile or her posture that hints she's interested in taking this further, which is exactly what Zevran wanted.

By the time the couple excuses themselves to return to their room, Zevran is buoyant and full of energy. In other circumstances, he would be looking for someone who was interested in more, someone willing to help him turn all that undirected energy toward a worthy goal, but that's not something he has to worry about tonight. That makes him grin, even more pleased with himself and the world in general.

Brosca and Leliana are the only two of their party still at the table when Zevran returns to it, the others gone off to bed, along with most of the inn's other patrons. The common room isn't even a quarter full, the noise more like a murmur than a roar as people unwind for the night. Unlike Zevran, who's wound tight in excited anticipation.

"What was that all about?" Brosca asks, tilting her chin toward the table Zevran just left.

It's such an odd question, Zevran blinks at her. "A pleasant way to pass the evening, nothing more. I promise, I did not make a pest of myself." He manages--barely--not to smile at calling himself a pest. A pity Alistair isn't here.

"Did something happen today?" Brosca asks.

Zevran thinks of all the things that happened today that he won't be telling her about and again has to fight back a smile. "Alistair found a way for us to pass the time while Wynne and Morrigan experiment," he says, and this time, he's glad Alistair isn't here. The blushing and spluttering that statement would provoke would draw Brosca's attention instantly. "It made the day a little less tedious."

"Is that why he wanted the book?" Leliana asks, like Zevran has just solved a mystery for her. "I was puzzled when all he asked was whether it was in a language he could read. He didn't even seem to care what it was about."

"A book?" Brosca asks.

"He reads it aloud," Zevran says, puzzled by his own sudden reluctance to explain. Wynne and Morrigan were there the whole time, and reading aloud, while unusual, isn't an inherently romantic gesture, especially in these circumstances. Telling Brosca about it, though, feels like calling Alistair dulzura in front of her. "While the spell is active, I can do nothing except watch and listen. Alistair's reading gives me something to listen to."

Brosca looks a little too enlightened for something so simple. "And that's why you're whipping around like a snapped bowstring."

"What?"

"I don't think you've sat still since you came down here," Brosca says. "Or said a single word that wasn't joking or flirting."

"Is that so different from any other night?" Zevran asks, honestly puzzled.

"Yes," Brosca and Leliana say together. They share a quick smile, and Leliana opens her hand to cede the floor to Brosca.

"I've never seen you like that," Brosca says. No smile for Zevran, just a hard, flat stare.

"If I offended," he begins, then stops when Brosca shakes her head.

"No, no, of course not," she says. "Or at least, you didn't offend me, and that couple didn't look offended, either. Everyone else can fuck off." She gives him another look, and he realizes that what he's taken for irritation or anger is only her usual intensity, distilled to something even more potent than usual. She's not angry; she's simply trying to punch holes in his walls so she can peer inside.

Zevran would rather she was angry with him.

"I didn't realize it was so bad," Brosca says, "but I should have. I was so focused on getting those rings off, I didn't think about what all these experiments would be like for you."

"I feel as though I missed some crucial piece of this conversation," Zevran says. "What about tonight was so very different?"

Brosca hesitates so long that Leliana says quietly, "You're happy."

"I am always a veritable font of joy," Zevran says, while inside, his mind is paging through memories of the last week, trying to understand what they're talking about. He jokes all the time, and he's flirted with plenty of people, not just with Alistair.

But not with anyone outside their group.

Once he's spotted the pattern, it's obvious. He's joked and flirted and done his part to keep the conversation moving easily, but he's never once gotten up from the table to go in search of new people to talk to. He hasn't wanted to, even though a year ago, Taliesen and-

No. No, Zevran is not ruining this evening by thinking of the past. He wants to enjoy the present and pretend the past never happened.

Brosca, damn her eyes, straightens at whatever she sees on his face. "I told you not to say anything," she mutters in an aside to Leliana.

Leliana gives Zevran an apologetic smile. "But if you now have a more enjoyable way to spend the day, then of course you would be happy."

"Today's experiments were certainly less tedious than they have been in the past." Zevran gives her a smile he doesn't quite feel. "Why is it that boredom is so very exhausting?"

"I don't know about boredom," Brosca says, "but spending the whole day being tortured would definitely tire me out."

Zevran is on his guard, which is the only reason he doesn't flinch at her words. "I would hardly call it torture," he says. "Wynne and Morrigan need to learn whatever they can of the rings, and how else can they do it?"

"Fine," Brosca says grudgingly, "not torture. Just really fucking unpleasant, and for a lot longer than I meant. I thought they'd either find an answer or run out of tests after a couple days, but then I got distracted by everything else and forgot to ask." She doesn't look guilty so much as angry at herself. "I'm sorry, that was a shitty thing to do."

The more time Zevran spends around her, the less he understands how her mind works. He's her knife now, to do and be whatever she wants. If she wants him to spend his day as the subject of Wynne and Morrigan's experiments, that's her right, and that's what Zevran will do. Why would she apologize for that?

"I'll talk to Wynne and Morrigan tomorrow," Brosca says. "If they haven't found something by now, they're not going to find it without some new ideas or help from someone else. There's no point in more experiments, not until they've got something new to try."

"If they can find a way to remove these rings," Zevran says, "then a little boredom is a small price to pay."

"Boredom," Brosca echoes. "Right, sure, we can keep calling it that if you want." The sarcasm in her voice could slice through steel.

Ignoring that seems safest, though usually Zevran wouldn't consider ignoring her to be anything approaching safe. "Besides," he says with his best smile, "why would I stop now, before we reach the end of the book? I must know what happens next."

Brosca looks at him a long time. He doesn't let his smile falter, and eventually she asks Leliana, "How long to finish the one you leant them?"

"Hm. How much of the day did Alistair spend reading?" Leliana asks Zevran. "His voice seemed fine at supper, so it can't have been too long."

"He read for most of today. Wynne soothes his throat when he needs it."

Leliana looks mildly surprised but says to Brosca, "Tomorrow afternoon, I would think. It wasn't a long book I gave him."

"Good enough," Brosca says. She raises her eyebrows at Zevran. "Can you do one more day?"

"Whatever you wish, oh fearless leader." She gives him a look, so he adds, "Another day will be easy enough."

Brosca squints at him like she's hoping that will help her see into his head, but he just smiles until she nods. "I'll let Wynne and Morrigan know," she says. "They have to have seen Alistair do it often enough by now, they can argue without putting you through that over and over."

The relief that hits Zevran is shocking in its intensity, almost literally staggering. How can he be so relieved to be done--or nearly done--with something that doesn't hurt and where he can't fail?

There's no denying that he is, though. The lightness he felt before is stronger now: he isn't floating, he's flying, like the fireworks the wealthiest nobles sometimes had at their parties. He's so elated he should be giving off sparks, and the fact that it makes no sense can't cast a shadow over him, not right now.

"Your concern for my well-being warms my heart," he says with a gallant bow, hoping to mask sincerity behind grandiosity.

"Sure it does," Brosca says.

She looks like she's going to say something else, but she gets distracted when Leliana snuggles up against her side, looking too charming and innocent by half. Never trust a bard who looks like that.

"I'm so glad Alistair thought of a way to make the day less boring for you," Leliana says with a sweet smile. It's only because Zevran is watching them so closely that he sees Leliana's hand tighten when Brosca opens her mouth to speak. Leliana's smile doesn't slip by a hair. "Tomorrow at breakfast, you can tell me which parts of the book were your favorite."

A dismissal and an opportunity for him to escape. He gives her a more ironic bow than he gave Brosca and receives a dimpled smile in exchange.

In truth, he's not offended by the dismissal. She wants him gone so she can resume her private conversation with Brosca, and he wants to be gone so he can begin a private conversation with Alistair. He only wonders whether Leliana and Brosca's conversation will involve as little actual talking as the one he plans to have with Alistair.


	9. Chapter 9

The rooms assigned to Brosca's group are together on a single hallway, which is empty when Zevran reaches it. Alistair has one of the rooms closest to the stairs, and Zevran slips quickly inside before anyone can wander by and ask pointed questions.

Alistair looks surprised to see him, which Zevran finds surprising himself. "Is this a bad time?" Zevran asks, only half joking.

"What? No, come in-...ugh, never mind, you're already in. No, it's not a bad time." Alistair rakes his hands through his hair in obvious frustration. "Sorry, maybe someday if I'm lucky, I'll stop sounding like an idiot."

"This seems like perhaps it _is_ a bad time," Zevran says, completely serious now. "If you wish me to go-"

"You could have gone with them," Alistair blurts out. When Zevran gives him a puzzled look, he adds, "The, um, the people you were talking to. You didn't have to say no because of me."

Is that what has him so on edge? "Or perhaps," Zevran says, "I never asked the question, because I had no interest in more than a conversation to pass the evening."

"You looked interested in more."

Alistair's tone is neither sulky nor jealous, so Zevran gives him a real answer and not a diversion. "Interested in more? Certainly. Interested in more with them? Not at all." He listens to his own words again, then adds, "Nor were they interested in more with me."

"I know this is still really new," Alistair says awkwardly, with a small flick of his hand between the two of them. "And you didn't promise anything."

"Alistair," Zevran says, trying not to let it be a sigh. "New or not, promises made or not, I would never take another lover, even for a night, unless you and I had discussed it first."

Alistair looks surprised to a degree that borders on insulting. "Why?"

Fereldans. Do they not think these things through, or is it simply that they never talk about them? "Because they would be your lover through me, and that should be your choice."

"But if I said no, then you and I would be done, wouldn't we?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Zevran says. "This happens to be one of the rare times where your answer matters less than your reason for it."

Alistair gives his head a quick, hard shake and mutters something under his breath, something that might be, "Antivans."

Zevran chooses to ignore that. "None of which matters for tonight in any case. I wished to pass the evening with some light conversation, nothing more." His mouth twitches. "While I did not precisely say no because of you, neither did I look for someone to whom I could say yes. That was, indeed, because of you, but it was no hardship. And my choice," he adds, when Alistair opens his mouth.

After a moment of silence, Alistair says, "I fucked this up again, didn't I?"

"Of course not," Zevran says. "You misunderstood, and I failed to think how it might appear." He takes a step further into the room, away from the door, and gives Alistair a sly smile. "But now we both understand, yes?"

"Ye-es," Alistair says, drawing the word out like he's not sure.

"And here we both are, yes?"

"Oh," Alistair says as he realizes where Zevran is going. "I mean, yes. Yes, we are."

Zevran spreads his arms wide to display himself, though his clothes ruin the gesture somewhat. "Then tell me what I can do to please you."

Alistair flushes but doesn't look away. "What about you? What do you want?"

"Most anything," Zevran says. "The list of things I do not like is very short."

"All right," Alistair says, "but I wasn't asking what you like. What do you _want_?"

There's a flip answer on Zevran's tongue, but it dies at the serious look on Alistair's face. Unfortunately, that leaves Zevran without any answer at all, because it's not as easy a question as Alistair seems to think.

"You keep asking me what I want," Alistair says when Zevran doesn't answer, "but you never say what you want, and I don't know how to figure it out if you don't tell me."

_Can I promise to tell you when I know?_ Zevran thinks, then jerks back from the thought. Ridiculous. Of course he knows what he wants.

His chin comes up defiantly, except he's not sure what he's defying, and his voice is too sharp as he says the first thing that comes to mind. "I want to be hurt."

Alistair's eyes widen, and he says nothing, apparently struck speechless.

"I want to be hurt," Zevran says again, holding Alistair's gaze, "and I want to be used, and I want to be-"

Wanted.

No. Absolutely not.

"-admired."

Alistair's eyes are huge, and Zevran feels a twist of mingled anger, satisfaction, and guilt. There were other ways he could have said that, but he chose the worst...why? And for that matter, why is he angry at Alistair for asking the same question Zevran has asked him more than once?

"Admired?" Alistair repeats. He looks confused. "You want me to tell you how good you look? Or how good you, um, do things?"

Amusement washes away the anger, leaving Zevran feeling almost as confused as Alistair looks. That sort of vengeful anger, the kind that says, "You hurt me, so now I'll hurt you," isn't like Zevran, and how did Alistair hurt him, anyway?

"While I would never object to being told how well I suck your cock," Zevran says, hoping to move them quickly along, "for the moment you may limit yourself to telling me how beautiful I am."

"You do," Alistair says. "And you are. Both of those things. But you already know that."

"I could also stroke myself alone in my room," Zevran points out. "Another person's assistance is not technically required at all."

Alistair snorts a laugh even as his ears turn a darker shade of red. "All right, yeah, that's true." His smile fades, and for a moment, his eyes are as dark and intent as Brosca's. "But is that really all you want? Because you _are_ beautiful, and you do, um, you look incredible on your knees, and I'll tell you that all you want. Fucking Maker, I'll tell you so much you'll change your mind and tell me to shut up about it, because honestly, I'd thought about it before you walked into my room the other day, but I didn't want to say so because it sounds stupid, and I didn't want to look like...like...well, like what I am, which is totally inexperienced, and I know that's not what you're used to, and I can't do anything about that, but if I can give you something you want, something other than me knowing what I'm doing, then I want to."

A small spark of anger returns, unreasonable though it is. Why does Alistair have to make this so complicated? Why can't he just let Zevran give him what he wants, rather than picking away at things better left alone?

Zevran has never in his life wished so much for someone to be selfish.

"And I did hear the other two things," Alistair adds. He shrugs self-consciously. "I just was waiting for you to ask for something I couldn't do, or didn't understand, or...something."

"Something," Zevran repeats, not sure himself if he's mocking or teasing. All his earlier energy is still bubbling inside him, and while he would rather direct it to something enjoyable, he's aware of the potential for it to slide into anger instead.

"Something," Alistair repeats. "There have to be a few hundred somethings you know how to do that I never even thought about. I could borrow some more books from Leliana, I guess, except I think I'd be too embarrassed. Maker only knows what'd be in them. Or what she'd say when I gave them back." He lowers his voice conspiratorially. "You know how those Orlesians are, always doing weird things with other things. Just so you know, I refuse to do anything involving snails."

"Snails?" Zevran asks, half a beat before his brain catches up and he realizes he's being teased. He rallies quickly and demands, "Who could object to snails?"

"No snails," Alistair says firmly.

"I promise, I know a very interes-"

"No. Absolutely not. No snails."

Then they're both laughing, and Zevran's anger evaporates. Without it pushing him, he can take the whole conversation and pack it away, to go with all the other things he doesn't think about. He has a lot of experience at both shoving things into that corner and ignoring them once he has.

"No snails," Zevran agrees. "Though should you ever change your mind..."

"I'll let you know," Alistair says. "And then you can get a healer, because it will mean I've gone crazy."

"Duly noted," Zevran says. He purses his lips in an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression. "Do you know, now I think about it, there is something I want right now. Other than snails."

"Other than snails," Alistair says, "what is it you want right now?"

"I want you to come over here and kiss me."

"Oh." Alistair looks surprised, then pleased, then suspicious. "Are you just saying that because you know I like it?"

"Alistair," Zevran says in his most peremptory voice, "come here and kiss me."

"Pest," Alistair says.

"And still, no one is kissing me," Zevran says. He's not sure if he's allowed to joke about this, but he does it anyway, watching Alistair's face for any sign he's going too far. "It seems I must go back downstairs and find someone else willing to do it."

Laughing, Alistair closes the distance between them and lifts Zevran into the air, one hand under each thigh. The moment Alistair's mouth is close enough, Zevran kisses him, before Alistair has finished straightening or Zevran has managed to wrap arms and legs around him. It makes the first moments of the kiss awkward and uncoordinated, but they're both laughing, and Zevran doesn't care when he hits his nose on Alistair's cheek hard enough to make his eyes water.

The laughter dies a quick death as soon as they sort themselves out, but it's replaced with Alistair's fist in his hair and tongue in his mouth, and Zevran is more than happy to return both in kind. The kiss is rough and hard, as much teeth as anything else, gasping breaths shared between them for brief moments before one of them closes even that small distance again.

Zevran isn't even aware they're moving until Alistair shoves him against the door so hard it's a wonder no one comes to see what the noise is about. When and if they do, Zevran will deal with it. Until then, he's going to hold on tight to Alistair and throw his head back to bare his throat, hoping Alistair will take the hint.

Alistair does, but only halfway, pressing open-mouthed kisses all down Zevran's neck without biting once.

Before Zevran can say anything, Alistair rasps out, mouth against Zevran's neck, "Is it later yet?"

"Later than what?"

"I don't know," Alistair says. He sounds like he's grinning. "But the other day, you said I could bite you 'later.' So, is it later yet?"

"Definitely," Zevran says.

Without any more warning than that, Alistair bites him hard, and Zevran barely turns a groan into a harsh exhale.

"I was mistaken," Zevran says, wrapping one hand around the back of Alistair's head to stop him from pulling away at the words. "You missed later, which means you are now behind. You should hurry, or you might not catch up."

Alistair takes that as the challenge it was meant to be and proceeds to leave marks from Zevran's ear to his shoulder on both sides, stripping off Zevran's shirt when it gets in his way. Not every bite is as hard as the first, but many of them are, and a few are harder. Each is a sharp pain that fades to a dull ache that melts in turn into the ache of the previous marks, until they're no longer individual bruises, just a wash of throbbing pain under heated, too-sensitive skin.

"Am I caught up?" Alistair asks, after he's marked all the skin he can reach. He's breathless, smug, the laugh still in his voice, which is low and warm in Zevran's ear.

"Caught up?" Zevran demands. "This is nothing but a start."

"But I'd have to put you down to get anywhere else," Alistair says, "and I like you here."

He presses closer, hands firm on Zevran's ass, and Zevran arches into him, grinding his cock against Alistair's stomach.

"Since you mentioned the subject of 'later,'" Zevran says, not caring that his voice isn't entirely steady, "there was another topic we set aside the last time."

"Mm?" The sound is muffled, Alistair's mouth warm and wet against his neck. Alistair's teeth scrape over one of the marks, jolting Zevran with fresh pain that knocks all thought from his head.

Alistair does it again, a little lower down, and Zevran threads fingers into his hair, silent encouragement to match his gasping breaths and the rocking of his hips.

"What else were we supposed to talk about later?" Alistair asks. He then sabotages Zevran's attempt at an answer by sucking on another bite mark.

"If you want an answer," Zevran says, "you will need to stop that."

He can feel Alistair's smile. "I thought I was behind. Had to catch up."

"You can catch up in the bed."

"The bed?"

"Yes," Zevran says, trying to sound like he isn't thinking about just rutting against Alistair until they both come. "As I might have mentioned, sometimes people do this in beds rather than against a wall."

"See?" Alistair says. "This is what I mean. Orlesians and Antivans, always doing weird things with other things."

His muscles shift and his hands spread wider to support Zevran's weight, then he steps back from the door as smoothly as if he isn't carrying another person. It's more than a little arousing, and Zevran doesn't hesitate to tell him so.

Alistair laughs, surprised, as he turns toward the bed. "What, that I can carry you?"

"All that strength," Zevran murmurs, "makes me think of how easily you could hold me down."

"Not if you want me to do anything else at the same time."

Zevran's back hits the mattress before he can respond, Alistair on top of him, between his legs, grinding down, and Zevran abandons that conversation for a more important one. "Clothes off."

"Demanding." Alistair makes a fist in Zevran's hair and pulls his head so far back Alistair can bite the front of his throat, right below his chin. "Very demanding."

"I want to see you naked."

Alistair pauses, his mouth still against Zevran's neck. "You've seen me naked plenty of times."

"Not when I was permitted to look," Zevran points out, and he can feel Alistair smile.

He doesn't get much of a chance to look now, either, because Alistair does his best to get both of them naked as fast as possible. That none of their clothes get ripped is a small miracle Zevran will appreciate later, when he doesn't have Alistair on top of him, naked and hard and panting in his ear.

Zevran had plans for once they were both naked, but Alistair doesn't give him a chance to suggest any of them. He picks up where he left off, one hand in Zevran's hair to pull his head back, the other hand exploring every inch of skin in reach while he bites and licks and sucks his way down Zevran's throat. He's admirably thorough about it, backtracking if he misses a spot, until Zevran knows his neck will be covered in bruises tomorrow. The thought makes him groan, and he arches up, tipping his chin higher than Alistair's hand in his hair has dragged it.

Alistair reaches the hollow at the base of his throat and keeps going. Less thorough now, but no less rough, his teeth leaving dozens of marks across Zevran's chest and stomach. His hands are constantly in motion, gentler than his teeth as they stroke marked and unmarked skin. He touches everywhere, down Zevran's legs, back up his sides, over his arms, up his neck, fingers even pushing between Zevran's lips to stroke across his tongue.

Zevran sucks eagerly, thoughtlessly, and Alistair moans against his belly, momentarily frozen in place as Zevran tugs his hand higher, high enough to suck his fingers all the way down to the knuckle. Alistair only pushed two into his mouth, so Zevran uses his own hands to uncurl a third finger and suck that at the same time. Alistair's fingers aren't what he wants to suck, but they're the closest he can get right now, and the sounds Alistair is making are exactly what Zevran wants.

"Your fucking mouth," Alistair whispers in a choked voice.

"Mm?" It's impossible to talk like this, so Zevran hopes the noise conveys how much he wants Alistair to keep talking.

"Maker save me, I think I could come like this." He bites a little lower on Zevran's stomach, just above where the head of his cock rests. "They're _fingers_ , how do you make that feel so fucking good?"

Zevran grins and slides his tongue between those fingers, down to the webbing at the base. At Alistair's shuddering breath, he does it again, slower this time.

"Your fucking mouth," Alistair mutters again. He sounds almost angry, and he wrenches his hand away with unexpected force.

"If you let me," Zevran says, raising his head enough to see Alistair's face, "I promise it will feel even better on your cock."

"I know it would," Alistair says. He flashes Zevran a smile that's full of teeth in more than the literal sense. "That's what I'm trying not to think about right now."

He hooks an arm under and around one of Zevran's legs, turning it so that when he slides down the bed a little further, the inside of Zevran's thigh is right there for him to bite. Which he does, but slowly this time, the pressure increasing gradually from a touch to a real bite to a bite so hard Zevran's eyes sting, an involuntary reaction to the pain filling all of his awareness. He wants to come like this, mindless as much from pain as pleasure, except he also doesn't want this to be over so soon.

When Alistair raises his head at last, he leaves behind a perfect pale imprint of his teeth, and Zevran reaches down to run his fingers over it as it darkens. Alistair watches him do it, one hand rubbing lightly up and down the inside of Zevran's other thigh, expression a mix of hunger and wariness.

"Just the one?" Zevran asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you want more?" There's nothing hesitant about the question: it's as much a challenge as anything Zevran has ever said to him.

"As many as you care to make," Zevran says, meeting Alistair's gaze with a grin that dares him to do his best to make Zevran regret those words.

He certainly tries. He leaves marks all down the inside of Zevran's thigh, sometimes the imprint of his teeth and sometimes blurred, red-purple ovals where he sucked hard on the skin. The next time Zevran tries to touch one, though, Alistair catches his wrist and moves his hand to his cock. "Stroke yourself."

Zevran makes a loose fist and does exactly that, one slow stroke up and down the length of the shaft. His whole body hums at the touch, a promise and a warning.

"And am I allowed to come?"

Alistair gives him another sharp grin. "That's the idea." Then he bites down hard on unmarked skin, sucking and worrying at it with his teeth.

The pain runs up Zevran's leg to his gut, and he lets it roll over him in waves, until Alistair finishes that bite and says, "You're supposed to be stroking yourself."

Zevran tightens his fist and does as he was told. One hand on his cock, he lets the other roam to touch each mark Alistair left on his chest. Occasionally, he looks down to watch Alistair, who's doing his best to bite every inch of skin on the inside of Zevran's thigh. He works with a single-minded focus that might be charming--sweet, even--if he were doing almost anything else. Given what he is doing, it creates an impression of controlled violence, a threat of more pain that Zevran could provoke if he's not careful. It's nearly as arousing as the bitemarks themselves.

The third time he looks down, Alistair is looking back, and his expression does nothing to make him seem less dangerous. He holds Zevran's gaze as he abandons what he was doing to move back up the bed, so his mouth is above Zevran's cock. Zevran arches under him, half deliberate performance for Alistair's benefit, then hisses through his teeth as Alistair pins him down with a hand on each hip.

Alistair glances between Zevran's cock and his face, not so much indecisive as considering his options. If he notices Zevran's attempts to thrust up beneath him, he gives no sign, and he doesn't budge by so much as an inch. After a thoughtful pause, he lowers his head and wraps his lips around the head of Zevran's cock.

Zevran tries again to arch up. It's not a performance this time, and he's close, so close, too close for Alistair to have his mouth there, but when he gasps out Alistair's name in warning, Alistair ignores him and keeps going until his lips meet the top of Zevran's fist. He's barely halfway down, and he has no idea what he's doing, but he doesn't need to do anything. His mouth is hot and wet, and Zevran aches all over from his teeth and the bruising grip of his hands. It's enough, it's more than enough, and Zevran comes, shuddering, pinned too thoroughly to even thrust up.

Distantly, he hears Alistair cough, but it's less something he notices and more something he remembers and notices later, around the time he starts breathing again. By the time he opens his eyes, Alistair is wiping his mouth on the back of one hand and at least actively trying not to make a face.

Zevran doesn't laugh, but it's a near thing, and he only succeeds because he suspects Alistair would hear it as mocking. One of these days he's going to have to teach Alistair the difference between someone laughing about what he did and someone laughing at him. Not right now, though. He doesn't feel like thinking that much about anything for at least the next hour.

"All right?" he asks Alistair. The words are creaky, his throat dry, but the pitcher of water is across the room, and moving is no more interesting a prospect than thinking.

"Um, yeah." Alistair blinks, looking remarkably uncertain for someone with a hard cock and a naked man in his bed.

In the spirit of helpfulness, Zevran stretches theatrically, making no effort to pretend it's anything except a show. Alistair is an appreciative audience, and that's all the encouragement Zevran needs.

"What is it you want?" Zevran asks.

Alistair's eyes start at his mouth and work their way down, taking in the bitemarks and bruises decorating Zevran's skin. His uncertainty falls away the more he looks, and by the time he meets Zevran's eyes again, all Zevran can see in his face is want.

"Fucking Maker," Alistair breathes, "you're beautiful."

"I am," Zevran says with an insolent smile. "Also waiting to be told what I should do to please you."

Rather than answer in words, Alistair drags him down the bed and rearranges them so Zevran's legs are pressed together with Alistair kneeling across his thighs. Alistair is tall enough and broad enough to make Zevran feel small when they're both standing and fully dressed. Naked, flat on his back, Alistair looming above him and pinning his legs to the bed? Zevran could almost convince himself he's actually helpless.

Alistair looks him up and down again, and as he does, he begins to stroke himself. Zevran looks right back, memorizing every detail for later. His appreciation is mostly aesthetic at the moment, his body too wrung out for more, but that won't be true forever. The sight of Alistair with a hand on his cock deserves to be appreciated properly, and more than once.

As does the sight and sound and feel of him coming: his head falls back, and he makes a harsh noise deep in his throat, and he spends himself all across Zevran's chest and stomach. And then there's his expression when he opens his eyes and looks down at Zevran beneath him, covered in bites and bruises and his seed. That's a look Zevran will remember long after the rest of tonight has blurred and faded.

It's the reason he reaches for Alistair's hand and tugs him down for a kiss. Alistair supports his weight on his free hand, so their chests don't touch, but he returns the kiss eagerly, and the hand Zevran grabbed twists around so their fingers are twined together. That gesture isn't entirely new to Zevran--he's always been as willing to use romance as sex to lure in a target--but it's the first time he hasn't immediately started plotting how to free his hand. The Crows had trained any such softness out of Rinna and Taliesen, the same as they had trained it out of Zevran. Between the three of them, it had meant more that they never tried such gestures, never tried to manipulate each other the way they manipulated targets.

To Alistair, holding Zevran's hand like this is a simpler gesture, one he probably did without thinking and certainly without any plan to use it for control. Alistair is too straightforward to think of using emotion to control anyone, and if he wants to take physical control, he only needs to use the ring. It's hard to see the gesture as anything except innocent, even for Zevran. He doesn't feel safe, precisely, not with one hand trapped, but he doesn't feel threatened, either.

Mostly what he feels is uncomfortable, torn between his training on one side and his knowledge of Alistair on the other. That steals some of his enjoyment from the kiss, and he resents both sides for it: he could ignore one or the other, but both together insist on grabbing his attention whenever he tries to concentrate on Alistair's mouth. For all that Zevran started the kiss, he's relieved when Alistair ends it, and annoyed by that relief.

Oblivious, Alistair rolls out of bed and grabs something off the floor to toss it to Zevran. For one jarring moment, Zevran thinks it's his shirt and an unsubtle hint that it's time for him to leave. Zevran's eyes catch up with his brain before he says anything, though, and he realizes it's Alistair's shirt he's holding, not his own.

By the time Alistair returns to the bed with a cup of water, Zevran has cleaned himself up and is trying to decide whether he really should leave now, before Alistair feels the need to hint, subtly or not. While he debates the question, he drinks the water one slow sip at a time, appreciating the way it eases the dryness in his throat and the way it gives him an opportunity to admire Alistair. Whatever nervousness Alistair would normally feel, it's nowhere in evidence now: he stands hipshot beside the bed, naked and unselfconscious, his fingers wandering over the bite marks on one of Zevran's shoulders.

Zevran finishes the water before he makes up his mind about leaving, only to have Alistair make the decision for him, if unintentionally. When Zevran offers the empty cup back, Alistair takes it with one hand while the other runs up Zevran's neck to just beneath his jaw. It's a dangerous position for Zevran to allow himself to be caught in, except someone forgot to tell Alistair that. Rather than wrap his hand around Zevran's throat, he brushes Zevran's lips with his thumb, back and forth until Zevran sucks it into his mouth.

He looks up at Alistair through his lashes, deliberately provocative, and ignores the small surge of relief at knowing he doesn't have to leave quite yet. Besides, why wouldn't he want to stay here? Alistair is looking at him like he's thinking all kinds of things his Chantry wouldn't approve of, and Zevran would very much like to find out what those things might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zevran's emotional IQ is just fine, unless he's applying it to himself. :P


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, next week's chapter may be delayed. There's a problem I need to fix, and I haven't yet figured out how big a hole I'm going to have to patch. This chapter has been ready since last night, I was just hoping to get a better handle on the next one so I could say something more definitive than "may be delayed." :-\

It's some unholy hour when Zevran finally drags himself back to his room, and he feels like he's barely fallen asleep before he's being summoned for breakfast. Getting dressed takes far longer than it should, and he almost leaves his room without applying elfroot to the marks on his neck. While it would certainly have made breakfast more entertaining, it's not fair to put Alistair in that position. Everyone at the table would know who was responsible for those marks before Zevran finished filling his plate: Alistair's blushing and stammering would give him away instantly.

Zevran doesn't care one way or the other, but Alistair seems to want to keep this a secret, and Zevran will at least not sabotage him. It shouldn't be difficult, after all. Of the two of them, Zevran is the one least likely to give anything away by accident, assuming he doesn't let lack of sleep make him stupid.

Downstairs in the common room, Alistair is almost as bad as expected: he flushes when Zevran sits at the table, and again every time he glances in Zevran's direction. Zevran pretends not to notice and strikes up a conversation with Leliana about the pet nug she's determined to buy. Why anyone would want a nug is a mystery, but the conversation keeps him turned mostly away from Alistair and spares him the temptation to break his promise about flirting. Baiting Alistair is so easy, and his behavior this morning is only making it easier.

He's also obscenely alert, far more so than Zevran, even though he couldn't have been asleep much earlier. While Zevran is trying not to fall facedown into his breakfast, Alistair is nearly vibrating. Zevran would blame the difference in their ages, except there isn't that much of a difference, and he's gone far longer on far less sleep without feeling this drained.

He stumbles through the morning in a fog, going where he's directed and doing what he's told and otherwise just trying to keep his eyes open. Morrigan and Wynne are too absorbed in their work to notice, but Alistair glances at him in concern more than once as the morning passes. By the time they break at noon, Alistair is frowning constantly and Zevran is barely able to walk in a straight line.

Alistair escorts him down the hall with a hand on his arm, the gesture more reminiscent of Brosca than of a concerned lover, but instead of going downstairs to the common room, they wind up in Alistair's room. As soon as it's clear where they're going, Zevran has to force himself not to tense. Easy to guess what Alistair expects to happen, and under normal circumstances, Zevran would be enthusiastically in favor. If he were slightly less tired, he would still be willing, if only to reward Alistair for the show of initiative. As it is, the bed is a powerful lure, but for an entirely chaste reason.

Zevran thinks as fast as he can with his head so muddled. Perhaps Alistair could fuck him? It's not something they've done before, but the basics are simple, and if Zevran is on hands and knees, Alistair won't be able to see his face. Alistair won't last very long, either, and once he's finished, Zevran can either distract him or get himself off quickly.

In hopes of moving things along, Zevran sits on the edge of the bed to start pulling off his boots. He doesn't trust his legs or his balance enough to try to make a show of taking off his clothes, so simply being naked will have to do. Maybe Alistair will mistake speed for eagerness.

Before Zevran can take off more than his boots, though, Alistair steps in close and puts a hand under his chin to raise his head. Zevran puts on his best smile and looks up, reaching for Alistair's laces.

To his surprise, Alistair releases his chin to catch his hands, then changes his grip so he can hold both of Zevran's wrists in one hand. That's something Zevran will have to remember for another day, but right now, it's interfering with his plans.

"Hey," Alistair says softly. He cups Zevran's face with his free hand, his thumb brushing over Zevran's lips. "Are you all right?"

"'All right'?" Zevran echoes in an affronted voice. "I am far better than 'all right.'"

"Of course you are," Alistair says. "But you also seem really tired."

With Alistair holding his wrists, Zevran can't wave a hand in the air, but he makes a dismissive noise. "Merely ready to be done with these experiments."

Alistair tilts his head to one side without relaxing his grip. He's studying Zevran's face like he'll be required to draw it from memory later, a level of deliberate thoroughness that's nearly as unsettling as Brosca's piercing stare.

"They're wearing you out, aren't they?" Alistair asks.

Zevran gives him a slow, wicked smile. "Or perhaps it has more to do with staying _up_ too late."

Alistair's ears turn red, which isn't a surprise, but he doesn't look away, either, and that most definitely is. "So you are tired."

The trap was laid and sprung more deftly than Zevran would have thought Alistair could manage. That doesn't mean Zevran has to give in and tell him the full truth.

"A bit tired," Zevran admits, with no hint in his voice or expression that he's been trying to avoid saying even that much. "Nothing worthy of concern."

"Mm." Alistair brushes his thumb over Zevran's lips again, which Zevran can only hope means they're done talking. He licks the pad of Alistair's thumb on its next pass, and for a moment, heat flares between them. Then Alistair shakes his head, and it's gone.

"I'm going to get us some food," Alistair says briskly. "Why don't you lay down and take a nap while I do that?"

"A nap?" Zevran asks, as if he's unfamiliar with the concept. He wants to do exactly what Alistair suggested, but he also doesn't want to admit that he wants it. More than wants it; he needs it, if only saying so wouldn't reveal how tired he is. This is the kind of exhaustion that gets people--gets Crows--killed, and a weakness that significant is nothing he wants known.

"A nap," Alistair says. "As in sleep. You know, the other thing people do in beds."

"The boring one."

"Zevran." Alistair's voice is soft. "Please."

The note of pleading punches a hole in the last of Zevran's resistance. "As you wish." He tries to sound as though he's humoring Alistair over something that doesn't matter, adding a small smirk for good measure. "But when you return, we can put your bed to a much more entertaining use."

Alistair makes a noncommittal sound and steps back, releasing Zevran's wrists. "Let's see how long it takes me to get food."

Which is how Zevran finds himself alone in Alistair's bed without quite knowing what happened. There was a plan, and he was following it, and then...and then...

And then his plan met Alistair and was smashed to pieces, the way his plans so often are. Why is it even a surprise anymore?

With a sigh, Zevran lets himself fall sideways to lie on the bed, which is more comfortable than any bed has a right to be. He would swear Alistair is in it with him, close enough to touch if either of them reached out, and that's unexpectedly comforting. Zevran's whole body feels heavy, even his eyelids weighted, and he's having a hard time remembering why he's fighting against it. He could nap for just a moment, surely. He'll wake up when Alistair returns, and then they can return to the plan. Whatever it was.

Zevran did have a plan, didn't he?

The next thing he knows, Alistair is back. It isn't even the sound of the door opening that wakes Zevran: it's the soft thump as Alistair sets something on the table, and Alistair's hmph of satisfaction, as if at a job well done.

Alistair's footsteps approach the bed, and Zevran forces his eyes open to give him a seductive smile. "Now may I show you some of the more interesting things we could be doing?"

The smile and the words bounce off Alistair. "No," he says, "now is when you go back to sleep."

"You were awake as late as I, last night." Zevran pats the blanket in front of himself invitingly, unsure if he actually wants Alistair to take him up on the offer but feeling obligated to make it. "You should nap, as well."

Alistair considers him a moment, then shrugs and sits on the edge of the bed to take off his boots. Just his boots, though: he's still fully dressed when he crawls up the bed. He also lies down behind Zevran rather than in front of him, pushing him gently to make enough room.

Zevran tries to roll over to face him, but Alistair's arm drops heavily across him, pinning him in place with his arms tucked against his body and his back against Alistair's chest.

"Sleep," Alistair murmurs into his hair. "You're supposed to be sleeping."

"When are Morrigan and Wynne expecting us to return?" Zevran asks, trying to fend off the inevitable for a little longer. Whatever else they do or don't do, he promised another half day to these experiments, and he wants to be done with them today.

"I'll wake you up," Alistair says. He tightens his arm pointedly. "Now go to sleep."

There are several ways Zevran could escape Alistair's hold, but most would require he hurt Alistair, and Zevran doesn't want that. He's also aware that the simplest solution would be to simply ask Alistair to release him. Pinned like this, though, he can pretend the choice isn't his; he's not showing weakness, he's conserving his energy for later, because pitting his strength directly against Alistair's is pointless. Better to wait for an opportunity that lets Zevran take advantage of his own abilities.

Better. Yes.

Much better.

###

The next time Zevran wakes, he's alone, with no memory of Alistair leaving. That he was so deeply asleep he missed Alistair climbing over him to get out of bed is alarming, but he has to admit, he does feel better. Still tired, but no longer dizzy and stupid with it.

There's no sign of where Alistair went or when he might return. Zevran waits a little while, but his stomach protests eventually, so he puts on his boots and goes in search of something to eat. Whatever food Alistair brought up to the room with him before, it's disappeared as completely as Alistair himself.

The common room is quieter than Zevran expected, and it leaves him suspicious as to how long he slept. Without sunlight to provide a hint, he can't tell for sure, but he's beginning to suspect it was too long.

Since he can't do anything about it now, he asks one of the servers for whatever the kitchen has available, then finds himself a place to sit that puts his back to a wall and the inn's door in his line of sight. Food first, then he'll track down Wynne or Morrigan and find out how much time he owes them. Maybe it will be little enough, he can persuade Alistair to postpone supper and finish tonight. Zevran, at least, will sleep easier knowing he won't have to face more experiments tomorrow.

His food has barely arrived when Brosca and Alistair come thumping down the stairs together, deep in conversation. Whatever they're talking about, they both look serious, but they leave off to scan the common room as they reach the floor. They look nothing alike, and yet, they also manage to look so exactly alike that Zevran grins at the absurdity.

Alistair spots him and says something to Brosca, whose gaze immediately swings around. Were they looking for him? And is it good or bad that they didn't find him in Alistair's bed?

No way to know from the looks they're giving him. The tips of Alistair's ears are red, but any little thing will make him blush, and Brosca is wearing her usual bland expression. Zevran can't even make out what they're saying to each other: Alistair's face is tipped down, Brosca's up, both of them in profile.

To Zevran's disappointment, it's Brosca who makes her way toward him, while Alistair heads for the door. Though if Alistair is allowed to leave the inn, that implies Brosca has lifted her restriction on their movements. Which means Zevran is allowed to leave, too. Once he finishes eating, he could go out and see...if not the sun, then at least stone walls different from those he's been staring at for days.

"Good afternoon," he says to Brosca as she slides onto the bench opposite him.

"Good evening," she says in her driest voice. "Sleep well?"

"Wonderfully," he says, as if he isn't cursing silently. "Though for perhaps a bit longer than I intended."

"A bit," she agrees.

When it becomes clear she isn't going to answer the implied question, Zevran braces himself mentally and asks, "How much longer was this 'bit'?"

"You're a little early for supper," she says, "but if you eat slowly enough, the others will be down by the time you finish."

Nearly twenty years of Crow training is the only reason Zevran's mouth doesn't drop open, and it doesn't stop his outraged, "Alistair said he would wake me!"

"I know this will be a big surprise for you," Brosca says, her voice still bone-dry, "but sometimes people say they'll do things they don't actually plan to do."

"He lied?"

"That's usually what it's called, yes."

"Let me rephrase." Zevran is starting to regain his footing, and he doesn't know if he's more amused or annoyed. "He lied convincingly?"

Brosca laughs. "Convincingly enough, it turns out. And if I needed more proof he was right to let you sleep, that would be it right there."

It's hard to argue with that logic, no matter how much Zevran wants to. Rather than try, he tears a hunk off the loaf of bread the server brought and drops pieces of it into his bowl of stew. Brosca watches him do it, which only makes him more uneasy, as if this is some sort of test he could fail. His only comfort is that Brosca is too straightforward for this to be a trap, so at least he knows what she wants him to do: eat.

The first bite reminds him how long it's been since breakfast, and he has to stop himself from trying to shove all of it in his mouth at once. The bread is going stale and the stew is probably nug, but it's far from the worst meal he's ever eaten, and he's demolished all of it in an embarrassingly short period of time.

Brosca is quiet until he's wiping the bowl clean with the last of the bread, but as he pops it into his mouth, she says, "Now let's talk about you lying to me."

Zevran almost chokes, and he can't respond beyond a startled blink.

"You promised to tell me before you were at the end of your rope," she says. "So why is it I had to find out from Alistair that you were so exhausted?"

The bread seems to have turned to glue in Zevran's mouth: he can't chew and swallow fast enough.

"Because sleeping for a whole afternoon?" she says. "That sure looks like someone who's run out of rope."

Mercifully, she nudges his mug of ale in his direction, and the pause while he clears his mouth gives him a moment to collect his thoughts. Somehow, he doesn't think that's by chance. It's almost like she knew his first reaction would be to lie or misdirect.

Zevran takes another sip of ale, one he doesn't need, and studies her over the rim of the mug. When he does speak, he ignores her question to ask one of his own. "Remind me what you did, before you left here the first time?"

"I was just another Carta thug," she says with a small smile. "I cracked heads where and when I was told."

"I was not aware that members of the Carta were so concerned with honesty."

"They're not," she says. "And mostly I'm not. You can lie as much as you want to the rest of the world, but you don't lie to me, and you don't lie to anyone else in my group, and when I tell you to do something, you do it."

She doesn't need a ring to make him want to leap to obey, and if she was just a thug, then the Carta leaders in Orzammar are fools.

"I promise," Zevran says, "I will not delay you. If you had needed me awake, I would have been awake."

"I'm only going to say this once more, so listen." Her eyes bore into his, not angry but absolutely serious. "What I need is for you to tell me before you fall over. You let me decide whether you need to grit your teeth and keeping going anyway. If I have to guess whether you're actually fine or just pretending, then one of these days, I'm going to guess wrong, and it's going to get someone killed." One corner of her mouth curls in a faint smile. "There's a Blight on, so we're probably all going to die anyway, but it'd be nice to at least make some kind of difference before we get eaten by an archdemon."

"Give it a bit of indigestion on the way down?" Zevran asks.

"If I can," she says. "Maybe I'll lose, but that doesn't have to mean they win."

Antiva has maintained its independence based in part on that very philosophy. Any of its neighbors could annex it if they wanted, but the cost in lives is too great: not the lives of soldiers, but the lives of those who give soldiers their orders. The Crows are a knife at the throat of every ruler, and for those foolish enough they might try it anyway, their generals understand that the first country to march on Antiva will find itself facing every other country around it.

"We won't win," Antiva might as well say to the world, "but you won't, either."

Zevran understands that far too well. He hadn't needed to come to Ferelden to die; he isn't immune to his own poisons, after all. He simply hadn't been willing to give the Crow masters that last, small victory. Nearly meaningless to them, but for months, it had been the only thing in Zevran's life with any meaning at all.

He raises his mug in ironic salute. "To stealing the joy from your enemies' victory."

She imitates the gesture, her hand curled around an imaginary cup. "Make them bleed for it." Then her hand and her smile both drop as she fixes him with that intent stare he's coming to dread. "But if I'm going to do that, I need to have as much of the important information as I can. And you know what's really important?"

"What?" he asks, though he thinks he knows the answer.

"Knowing how the people fighting beside me are doing. I can only compensate for weaknesses I know about."

Being called a weakness, even if obliquely, makes Zevran twitch. Something must show on his face, because Brosca stabs a finger at him. "That's exactly what I don't need. Every single one of us has weaknesses, so don't try to bullshit me and pretend you don't. I don't need you to be perfect. I need you to know what you can and can't do, and then I need you to tell me the truth about both."

To the Crows, things Zevran couldn't do were weaknesses he had to learn to hide from enemies, and the masters had certainly not been his friends. It's harder to say whether Brosca is.

"If you can't do that," Brosca says quietly, "then you'll stay here, or in camp, until Wynne and Morrigan figure out how to get those rings off, and once they do, you and I part ways. I'll give you your share of whatever coin we've made, but I won't have someone around who I can't trust to tell me the truth. I can't afford the risk."

As much as Zevran wants the ring off, he wants nothing to do with the rest of the picture Brosca paints. The past is a tangled mess he's doing his best to ignore, but here in the present, there's a growing part of him that wants to see what the future looks like, even if it's just as messy. Not because he feels any particular attachment to his own place in it: it's Alistair and Brosca who have made him curious. Nothing about either of them is what he expected, and he wants to know what else might be hiding below the surface, something he can only learn if he remains with them.

Which means he's going to have to tell Brosca at least some of the truth.

"I hid nothing from you deliberately," he says. "Until I woke this morning, I thought I had suffered no ill effects from Wynne and Morrigan's experiments."

Brosca arches her eyebrows at him, skeptical but listening.

"This has not been a creeping problem, growing worse each day," Zevran says. "I was well last night when I went to bed, and...not-well this morning when I woke. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you."

"You did seem fine last night," Brosca admits. Her mouth twitches in a brief smirk. "When I saw you this morning, I just thought you'd been up too late."

Zevran is still tired enough, he almost points out to her that Alistair got just as much--or as little--sleep as he did, but he catches himself in time.

"You wound me," he says instead. "Implying I could be so exhausted from a single night's revelry."

"Sorry," she says with stunning insincerity. "I'll stop assuming you had a very good night, and go back to assuming you hid a problem from me."

"I did not," he says, with all the sincerity she lacked. "I swear it."

She gives him a long, narrow-eyed look, then her mouth tightens. "All right, I believe you."

"You seem less thrilled by my honesty than I had hoped."

"If you're telling the truth," she says, "then you just mysteriously got sick between last night and this morning, for no reason any of us knows about. I don't like mysteries, and I really don't like mysterious illnesses."

Zevran isn't especially happy about it, either, but he tries not to let it show. "It appears to be disappearing just as mysteriously. Perhaps it will continue on as it's begun, and we needn't worry."

"Maybe," she says. Her gaze flicks down to his hand, and after a moment, he realizes she's looking at the ring. "Or maybe it's not a mystery."

Because what Zevran needed was another reason to hate this ring. "Have Wynne and Morrigan mentioned any good news to you they might have forgotten to tell me?"

"No." Brosca bites off the word and scrubs both hands over her face. "At this point, they're out of ideas and just trying things they've already tried, hoping to trip over the right answer. Tomorrow morning, I'd like them to look at the rings again, see if this tiredness is linked somehow, but then that's it. No more experiments unless they have actual new ideas."

Zevran doesn't know why he says it--too much time around the compulsively-honest Alistair, perhaps--but he points out, "You promised them one more day, and I cheated them out of the afternoon."

"I didn't promise anyone anything," Brosca says. "I said they could have one more day if nothing came up. As it turns out, something came up."

"They could argue that my oversleeping hardly counts."

Brosca smiles that tiny smile, the one that makes Zevran nervous. "They can certainly try." Without giving him a chance to reply, she jerks her chin at his empty bowl. "And you need to eat some more."

There are a number of responses Zevran could make to that, but he chooses to simply press his fist to his heart in a joking salute. "Your wish is my command, oh benevolent one."


	11. Chapter 11

Brosca orders him another bowl of stew, and they chat for a while about nothing in particular. The conversation is an excuse, Zevran is almost certain: Brosca wants to be sure he eats, and she's prepared to hover over him until he does. Since he's hungry and not averse to her company, he doesn't try to protest. Nor does he protest when she orders a full supper for both of them as soon as the kitchen has something to serve besides stew. He should be sick from the amount of food he's eaten, but he's only pleasantly full when he finishes what's technically his third full meal in an hour.

He does try to protest when, rather than allowing him to go out into the city, she banishes him back to his room for more sleep. A jaw-cracking yawn undermines him at the worst possible moment, though, and Brosca's pointed look says everything that needs to be said. Zevran surrenders, laughing, and goes upstairs to fall face down into a bed again. His own this time, and without company, but for all that, Alistair is a nearly physical presence in the room. It's not uncomfortable, per se, except that it has Zevran looking around for someone who isn't there.

When he wakes again, he knows approximately what time it is just by listening. The common room is quiet but not silent, and he hears Sten and Leliana out in the hallway, wishing each other good night. Later than he meant to sleep, but at least it isn't morning already. Presumably Brosca would have come around to check on him if he'd slept an entire day, so it must be the same evening.

Zevran dozes for a while, drifting in and out of sleep as the others return to their rooms one by one. When he's sure everyone is settled, he slips out of bed, into his clothes, and down the hall to Alistair's room. He doesn't bother with his boots, both for silence and for simplicity later.

There's no fireplace and thus no fire to illuminate the room--the lava flows keep most of Orzammar comfortable even by Antivan standards--so the only light is from a single oil lamp beside the bed. It's more than enough to make out Alistair, who's just straightening from the basin where he appears to have been washing up before bed. He's blinking in confusion, clearly unprepared for company.

To Zevran's great delight, he's also wearing not so much as a stitch of clothing.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Alistair asks, but he's starting to smile, and it's a smile that leaves no doubt as to whether Zevran is welcome.

"I," Zevran says, "have had quite enough sleep for one day."

Brosca's theory, that the rings might have something to do with that mysterious exhaustion, flashes through Zevran's head. For a moment, he considers telling Alistair about it, but he discards the idea almost immediately. It's only a theory, after all, and bringing it up would almost certainly spoil the evening as Alistair agonized over the implications.

Instead, Zevran stalks across the room to stand in front of Alistair and jab a finger at him. "You were supposed to wake me."

"Maybe I tried, and you just didn't wake up."

"Did you?"

"No," Alistair admits. He regards the finger Zevran is still pointing at him, then takes hold of it and tugs it close enough to kiss the tip.

"There will be no sweet-talking your way out of this," Zevran informs him.

Alistair gives him a slow, sleepy blink, so innocent that when he sucks Zevran's finger into his mouth, it's a complete surprise. He sucks that one finger slowly all the way in and lets it slide all the way out just as slowly. Then he does it again, and this time, it's two fingers, his tongue wet and warm between them, his teeth scraping lightly. Zevran watches, mesmerized, warm prickles running up his arm and across his chest, until he recalls himself and makes a show of frowning.

He does not, however, try to take his hand back.

"That will not save you, either," Zevran says. "I did not intend to sleep away the entire afternoon, and you knew it."

The flaw in his logic, of course, is that talking requires Alistair stop what he's doing. Worse, it turns his expression serious. "I was worried about you."

"You needn't ever concern yourself over me," Zevran assures him, hoping to end this line of conversation before it can interfere with his plans for the evening.

"Maybe I want to do it anyway," Alistair says. He turns Zevran's hand over so he can kiss the palm. "Just because I don't have to doesn't mean I can't."

Why would he want to, though? Why would he willingly take on that risk? Zevran didn't knowingly take it on with Taliesen and Rinna; he'd simply looked around one day and realized his mistake, that he'd let two people mean so much to him. If he'd seen it coming, he would have tried to avoid it. The way it all ended is proof enough he would have been safer.

Alistair shakes Zevran's arm gently by the wrist, drawing his attention back to the present. "What're you thinking about?"

"That all Grey Wardens are mad," Zevran says promptly.

"What?" Alistair asks, feigning offense. "Even me?"

"Even you." The grip on his wrist is loose enough Zevran can reach up to trace Alistair's lower lip with one finger. "Especially you."

"What does that say about you, then?"

"Nothing good." Despite the words, Zevran can feel the past slipping away, back into the shadows where it belongs.

"You're as crazy as I am," Alistair says.

"A man hoping to have his cock sucked ought to be more careful with his insults."

Alistair blushes and looks suddenly uncomfortable, his gaze darting away from Zevran's. "I'm, uh, not sure that's a problem right now."

"Oh?" Zevran asks. "Did you have other plans for tonight?"

"Not exactly. Or, I guess, sort of?" Alistair makes a gesture halfway between shrugging and hunching his shoulders. "I thought you'd be asleep. That I wouldn't see you until tomorrow."

He pulls his hand away, and Zevran lets him, but only so he has both of his own hands free to shove Alistair backward toward the bed. Alistair allows himself to be pushed until his legs hit the bed and he can sit on the edge, anxious face turned up to Zevran. From the corner of one eye, Zevran notices a small clay pot on the floor, tucked against the leg of the bed and half hidden in shadows. By the shape of the jar, it has to be Alistair's supply of elfroot salve, and Zevran makes note of it for later. For now...

"You expected to spend the evening alone," Zevran says as he straddles Alistair's lap, "and so you entertained yourself in my absence?"

Alistair nods, and his cheeks turn an even darker shade of red. He looks guilty, like he's been caught doing something he knew was wrong but couldn't resist.

One of these days, maybe Zevran will get around to reading the Chant of Light, to see if he can determine how much of Alistair's guilt is because of the Chantry, and how much because of his templar instructors.

Later, though. For now, Zevran leans forward until his arms are around Alistair's neck and his mouth against Alistair's ear. "And what did you think about, while you stroked yourself?"

Alistair swallows audibly but says nothing. His hands, however, have found their way under Zevran's shirt and are making their leisurely way up his back.

Zevran nuzzles the curve of his ear. "Did you think about me?"

A jerky nod, like Alistair tried to duck his head and caught himself. His hands reach Zevran's shoulders and start back down, fingers rubbing at the muscles along Zevran's spine.

"What was I doing, in this fantasy of yours?" Zevran asks, arching into the touch.

He's not expecting an answer and so isn't disappointed when Alistair is silent. If he'd had any inclination toward disappointment, Alistair's hands would have put an end to it. How can he be disappointed in anything when he's straddling a naked Alistair, whose hands are warm and sure no matter how uncertain his voice?

"I know you enjoy my mouth," Zevran murmurs. "Is that what you thought about? Did you stroke yourself thinking of my mouth around your cock?"

Another nod, less jerky than the last. Still silent, though.

Zevran opens his mouth to say something else, just as Alistair drags blunt nails up his back from ass to shoulder, scattering his thoughts.

"Again," he breathes, and Alistair does, drawing another set of burning cold lines across his skin. "Harder."

For all he keeps his nails short, Alistair manages to make the next set of scratches actually hurt, and Zevran gives a low, appreciative hum.

"Fucking Maker," Alistair mutters. He plants his hands on Zevran's chest and pushes him back, almost too fast for Zevran to get his feet under him. Before Zevran has a chance to be confused, Alistair is tugging at the hem of his shirt. "Take it off," he growls, and yes, there's the voice Zevran wanted to hear.

That's the look he wanted, too, hot and hungry, raking over every inch of skin as it's revealed. Alistair's hands follow behind the shirt, up Zevran's stomach and across his chest, fingers spreading wider until by the time Zevran's shirt hits the floor, Alistair's hands cover him from shoulder to shoulder.

Alistair meets his gaze, and for a moment, neither of them moves, Zevran standing shirtless between Alistair's spread knees. Then, without breaking eye contact, Alistair drags his nails down Zevran's chest hard and fast, across both nipples and all the way to his waist. The pain is sudden and shocking, and Zevran groans, just loud enough to be sure Alistair--and only Alistair--can hear. Let anyone walking by in the hallway think both of them sound asleep in their own beds. What Zevran wants is for Alistair to do that again, to touch him and hurt him and stare at him like he's too perfect to be anything except a construct of the Fade.

But when he tries to sit in Alistair's lap again, Alistair blocks him and says, "The rest of it, too."

He then reaches for the laces of Zevran's trousers rather than waiting for Zevran to do it, but Zevran swats his hands away. "Impatient," Zevran says, feigning disapproval. "Which of us was it who's already come?"

"If you'd gotten here earlier, it could've been both of us," Alistair says, as if his ears aren't red to the point of glowing. "So now who has to catch up?"

Zevran grins but refuses to be rushed as he finishes taking off his clothes. He makes a small show of it, unlacing his trousers without hurrying, then letting them slide slowly over his ass and down his legs to pool on the floor at his feet. The lamp beside the bed is dim enough, he can keep his scarred arm mostly in shadow, turning and twisting so that Alistair's attention remains on other things.

"Was this what you wanted?" he asks, when Alistair has looked him up and down twice.

"Yes," Alistair says, almost a growl now.

One of his hands grips the top of Zevran's shoulder, thumb stroking the front of his throat. The implied threat sends a shiver through Zevran, even knowing Alistair probably doesn't intend the gesture that way.

"I liked the way you looked last night," Alistair says, staring at Zevran's neck.

"Covered in the marks from your teeth?" Zevran guesses.

"Yeah." The blush, which had been nearly gone, reappears as he raises his eyes from Zevran's neck to his face. "I probably shouldn't, should I?"

"If I like it, why should you not?" Zevran asks. "Leaving them for anyone else to see would have led to awkward questions, but that was the only reason I did something about them."

He climbs back into Alistair's lap and leans in, back to where he was before, with his mouth by Alistair's ear. A position that also puts his neck conveniently close to Alistair's mouth, and teeth.

"Think of it this way," Zevran says. "Now you can begin again."

Alistair hums thoughtfully and tangles his fingers in Zevran's hair. "I could," he agrees. "Do you want me to?"

There's no hesitation or uncertainty in the words: his tone makes it clear he isn't asking Zevran's permission. He's making Zevran ask to be hurt and marked, and Zevran is more than willing to do it.

"Yes," he says, then inhales sharply when Alistair bites him hard, right on the muscle between neck and shoulder. "Yes, like that, more."

Alistair takes him at his word and leaves marks all up the side of his neck, precise and painful. When he's finished sucking a bruise into the skin right below Zevran's ear, he whispers, "I did think about you earlier."

"While you were stroking yourself?"

"Yeah." His hand in Zevran's hair tightens, pulling hard enough to sting. "I told you, you really don't know what you look like on your knees."

"I believe you called me a demon dream."

"You are," Alistair says. "You and your mouth."

"And what did you imagine me doing with my mouth?" Zevran asks. "Did you lie back and let me please you? Or did you put me on my knees so you could take what you wanted?"

"See, this is what I mean," Alistair says. "Your mouth is almost as much of a hazard when you're _not_ sucking me as when you are."

"If you truly believe that," Zevran says, "then I have done a very poor job of sucking your cock. Allow me to make amends?"

"Did you not hear me when I said I got myself off right before you showed up?" Alistair asks, laughing.

"A challenge." Though unlikely to be much of one, given Alistair's youth. "And I do enjoy a challenge."

He's not going anywhere with Alistair's fist in his hair, though, so he lowers his voice to a purr. "Let me suck your cock. Tell me what I did for you in your dream, and let me give it to you again, now."

"I think real people can't do some of it."

Zevran chokes back a laugh to keep his voice low and seductive. "Tell me, and let me try. Let me be your demon dream."

Alistair tightens his hand in Zevran's hair, pulling hard enough to make him gasp, then releases him just as abruptly. "Every single thing you do is a demon dream."

"Then shall we see how many of those things I can do tonight?" Zevran asks, already sliding to the floor. He holds Alistair's gaze as he does, letting his hands map the contours of Alistair's body, bone and muscle under skin that's sometimes smooth and sometimes covered in curls of pale hair. Hands only: he doesn't let his mouth touch anything until he's kneeling between Alistair's spread legs.

Even then, he uses his hand first, cupping Alistair's balls to stroke delicate skin with one thumb while his fingers press gently behind them. Alistair startles at the pressure but relaxes back into it almost immediately, his eyes darker than they were.

"See?" Zevran says, smiling up at him. "More than my mouth is a hazard."

"Trust me, I know."

Still smiling, Zevran brushes his thumb across Alistair's balls again and presses open-mouth kisses to his cock. He takes his time with it, his fingers slow and his mouth lingering, watching Alistair watch him. Alistair, who's leaning back on his hands in a seemingly-casual pose belied by his parted lips and the heat in his eyes. Calling him a demon dream might be overstating the case, but Zevran won't deny that he makes a lovely picture, one Zevran will stroke himself to in the future.

Alistair's cock is soft enough at first that Zevran can take all of it easily into his mouth, but it stiffens quickly. The first time it goes all the way to the back of his throat, he shuts his eyes and stays there until his whole body screams for air and his head feels like it's about to float away. He has control and he doesn't, he could move and he doesn't, and everything balances on that edge as the need for air washes away more and more of the world around them.

When he finally eases back enough to breathe, his first breath is only a little harsher than Alistair's.

"That's what I thought about you doing," Alistair says, and it almost sounds like he's talking to himself. "When I was getting myself off."

Zevran makes a quiet "I'm listening" noise and hopes it won't jolt Alistair back into awkwardness.

"I thought about other things, too," Alistair says, "but...definitely that. This."

His hand cups the base of Zevran's skull lightly, and the tip of his thumb brushes the corner of Zevran's mouth. He doesn't try to take control, just lets his hand rest there while his thumb teases Zevran's mouth where it's stretched around his cock.

"I thought about how good you look," Alistair says. "It feels incredible, but watching you is just...just..."

There's a pause as he takes a deep, shaky breath, and his next words are barely audible over the wet sound of Zevran's mouth sliding up and down the shaft of his cock. "I like watching you suck me."

Zevran gives a low hum of approval and puts his free hand over top of Alistair's where it still rests on the back of his neck. In response, Alistair makes a fist in his hair, but it's a loose one, not even close to painful.

"I like fucking your mouth," Alistair says, stumbling over the words without quite stuttering, "but I like this, too."

From his current position, Zevran can't easily respond in words, but he can move faster, and so he does. He takes Alistair's cock to the back of his throat on each stroke, almost as hard and fast as if Alistair were fucking him.

But after only a moment, Alistair's fist tightens in his hair, stopping him halfway down his next stroke. That's startling enough on its own, but Zevran loses track of that small surprise almost immediately as Alistair says, "Slower. When I want to fuck your mouth, I will."

Zevran groans, half arousal and half protest.

"I like watching you suck me," Alistair repeats, more emphatically. "Which is a stupid thing to say, most people probably do, but I think I could come just from watching you."

If Zevran's mouth wasn't otherwise occupied, he might say something about other people watching, mainly to see Alistair's reaction. He would blush, of course, but would he also be intrigued?

"It wouldn't even have to be _my_ cock you were sucking," Alistair says, "so long as I could see your face."

That's so startling, Zevran almost chokes on the head of Alistair's cock and has to pull back a couple inches to give himself time to recover. It certainly answers the question, though.

"Which is something else I shouldn't want." Some of Alistair's earlier anxiety is back in his voice, tinging it with guilt. Before Zevran can respond, verbally or not, Alistair adds, "You said last night that you want to be used, and I don't know everything that means, but me fucking your mouth is part of it, isn't it?"

Zevran nods and tries to raise his head, but Alistair's hand in his hair won't let him.

"You asked what I thought about when I was stroking myself," Alistair says. "And I didn't want to tell you all of it, because one of the things I thought about was you on your knees for someone else." He swallows and goes on with grim determination, like saying this aloud is the same as fighting his way across a battlefield. "A lot of someone elses. They were...they were using you like that."

He stops there, and Zevran waits for the rest, sucking lightly on the head of Alistair's cock, until he finally realizes Alistair has reached the end of his "confession."

That's it? _That's_ what he's ashamed of?

Fereldans.

Zevran is getting very tired of this country and its ridiculous, backwards notions about sex, but he's stuck with them for now. Or at least, he's stuck with them until he can pull Alistair free of the nonsense they've put in his head, and then the rest of the country can do as it pleases.

This time when Zevran tries to raise his head, he starts by pulling on Alistair's wrist. All it takes is one gentle tug and Alistair's fist snaps open as if he suddenly found himself clutching a hot coal.

"Alistair," Zevran says, before Alistair can make an apology. "Did I not say that I want to be used?"

"Yeah, but that's different," Alistair says. His frown deepens as he fumbles for words, and his mouth opens and closes twice before he says, "You wanting something for you isn't the same as me wanting something for you."

The Crow masters would disagree, but the list of ways Alistair is different from them is already miles long. There's no point in adding to it.

At the same time, Zevran isn't sure he agrees, either, not entirely. "What you think about while you stroke yourself need have nothing in common with what you do out in the world."

Alistair shrugs, and it's clear he disagrees but isn't prepared to argue the point.

Zevran changes tactics. He captures Alistair's gaze and holds it for a long moment, then says, "I would very much enjoy letting an entire room full of people use me while you watched."

It has the effect he wanted: Alistair takes a small, sharp breath, and his pupils widen.

"But I do wonder about one thing," Zevran adds in an exaggeratedly thoughtful tone.

"What?" Alistair asks, barely audible.

"When would you take your turn to use me?" Zevran asks. "First, so everyone else would know I had already been claimed? Or last, so no one else's claim could supersede your own?"

Alistair stares at him for so long Zevran has time to plan half a dozen strategies for what he might say next, depending on how Alistair answers.

The response still manages to surprise him: Alistair's mouth quirks, and he asks, "What makes you think it would only be once?"

Zevran tamps his grin down to a slow, lazy smile. "How many times, then?"

Alistair's hesitation is brief, barely perceptible, and when his eyes narrow, it's in a satisfyingly threatening way. "As many as I want."

###

It's late when Alistair finally sends Zevran back to his own room, though not as late as it's been in the past. For all Alistair's insistence that he leave, Zevran finds it hard to take it personally after the fourth time he's drawn into what's supposed to be a farewell kiss. After each one, Alistair pushes him away and says, "You need to get some sleep," only to pull him back in the next time the opportunity presents itself. By the time Zevran is ready to go, he's more than halfway to hard and sorely tempted to get undressed again, to the Void with a good night's rest.

But when he takes a step back toward the bed, Alistair shakes his head. "No," he says, and for all the regret in his face, his tone is firm.

"I slept most of the day," Zevran points out.

"You did," Alistair agrees. "Which means you needed it, so you probably need more."

There are some gaps in that logic, but the hand on Zevran's shoulder doesn't allow for arguments. It steers him firmly toward the door, and Zevran allows himself to be steered, at least until Alistair is reaching for the latch, then Zevran ducks out from under his hand and turns. It puts them face to face--or rather, face to chest, the difference in their heights made all the more evident by how close they're standing--and Zevran smiles his most winning smile up into Alistair's eyes.

"You would throw me out with no kiss goodbye?"

Alistair snorts. "I'm not throwing you out." But he cups Zevran's cheek, thumb brushing the tattoo. "And you've already had four. Pest."

Zevran hooks an arm around Alistair's neck and pulls him down, aware Alistair allows himself to be pulled. "Then consider this one your apology for calling me a pest."

"But I'm not apologizing," Alistair says.

Which is all he has time for before their mouths meet.

The kiss is only barely under control to start with, and within moments, it isn't even that, Alistair's hands fisted in Zevran's hair, Zevran's hands running over Alistair's bare chest and back. He doesn't want to leave; he wants to stay here in Alistair's room, with Alistair pressed against him and making soft sounds into an increasingly rough kiss. The exact details don't matter, whether it's against the door or in the bed or on the floor, so long as he has Alistair's skin under his hands. It's been so many months since Zevran wanted like this, he'd forgotten how it felt to be drunk on someone else's touch, to want and be wanted by someone who knew even a little bit about him. Not someone to be manipulated for what they can provide or a target to be lured in, but a lover, for however brief a time.

One of Alistair's hands grips the back of Zevran's thigh, and Zevran braces his feet, ready to push off from the floor when Alistair starts to lift him. He wishes he were naked and that Alistair hadn't put trousers back on, but Zevran has worked under far worse limitations-

"No," Alistair says abruptly, pushing Zevran away as he steps back, so they end up with several feet between them. "Sleep."

His mouth is red, and Zevran suspects his own looks much the same. On the off chance it doesn't, he sucks his lower lip between his teeth.

Alistair's eyes flick down to his mouth and then hastily back up to his eyes. "You need to sleep."

"I would rather stay," Zevran says in a softer voice than he intended. It reveals too much, and his heart gives the same sickening thud as if he'd just realized his back is unprotected with enemies nearby, but he ignores it.

"You won't sleep if you stay," Alistair says with justified certainty.

"Not immediately, no," Zevran allows. He gives Alistair a smile, looking up through his lashes. "But the night is still young."

"Zev, please."

The diminutive catches Zevran off guard. Alistair has used it a few times before, but never outside of sex, and it's odd to hear it in such a different tone. It takes the closeness Zevran has felt when his mind is floating and makes it about something other than the physical.

He's still trying to decide how he feels about that when Alistair says, "Why won't you take better care of yourself?"

That throws Zevran even further off balance, so he falls back on habit and training. He makes his smile even more seductive and says, "I prefer to take care of you." His tone makes it clear what sort of care he means.

Alistair's face turns red, and he stumbles so badly over his words that they come out completely garbled. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and tries again. "You know what I mean. You spent most of today either asleep or about to fall over, and for no reason at all. Even if you feel fine now, you probably still need the sleep.

Brosca's theory about the rings wanders back through Zevran's head, and he again considers telling Alistair about it, before discarding the idea the same as he did before. It might reassure Alistair about Zevran's exhaustion today, but the cost in self-recriminations and guilt is too high, especially when it's still only a theory.

"As you wish," he says to Alistair. "Tomorrow, then?"

It's not clear why that makes Alistair blush an even deeper shade of red, but he smiles even as his face heats, and that's the only part Zevran cares about.

"Tomorrow," Alistair agrees.

Zevran puts his hand on the latch, but before he opens the door, he flashes Alistair a sly smile. "You should consider going to bed early tomorrow night, so we have a little more time."

Then, while Alistair is still fumbling for a response, Zevran slips out of the room, feeling very pleased with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, I actually faded to black on a sex scene. Are you as shocked as I am?


	12. Chapter 12

Zevran is significantly less pleased with himself the next morning, when he's sitting in Morrigan's room waiting for her to finish arguing with Wynne over something. They've already run through an abbreviated version of the same experiments they've been trying for days, and Zevran doesn't understand why this suddenly requires so much debate. Perhaps because this time, Brosca is watching, arms folded and eyes taking in everything even as she says nothing. Her fingers drumming on her upper arm do betray a certain impatience, though, and Zevran wonders if either Morrigan or Wynne has noticed.

Alistair certainly has: he glances at Brosca's tapping fingers almost as often as he glances at Zevran, and he's rocking back and forth from heel to toe as they all wait, his impatience and nerves plain for anyone to see.

For his own part, Zevran sprawls in one of the chairs, a languid pose he adopted mainly because he wants to pace the room. He might have failed as a Crow in more ways than he can count, but he hasn't yet sunk to the point where he'll allow himself to be as transparent as Alistair, or even Brosca. This matters too much for him to let anyone see how he feels about it.

Brosca's fingers switch from drumming to squeezing, and it's only a moment later that she demands, "Well?"

Wynne and Morrigan give her matching looks of mingled exasperation and apology. "'Tis not so easy as you seem to think," Morrigan says. Her tone is significantly less waspish than the one she typically uses on the rest of them.

"I wouldn't know," Brosca says with her faint, sweet, dangerous smile, "because no one is telling me anything."

Morrigan opens her mouth, and by her expression, she isn't nearly as intimidated by Brosca as she ought to be.

"Alistair," Wynne cuts in, clearly trying to head off whatever storm Morrigan is about to provoke.

Alistair jerks upright, which is impressive given how straight he was already standing. "Yes?"

"When you use the ring to give commands," Wynne asks slowly, "do you feel anything special?"

"Guilty?" Alistair blurts out, then flushes.

Brosca's lips twitch, and her hand relaxes its grip on her arm, her fingers back to merely drumming. "Other than that."

Alistair looks from her to Wynne and back, his expression edging into panic. "I don't know. Special how?"

"A connection of some kind," Wynne says. "You voice the command aloud, but do you feel anything when you do? It might be a physical sensation, as if you were touching Zevran, or fighting him."

Zevran takes an iron grip on his self-control and manages not to laugh, or even crack a smile. Alistair's rising panic has nothing to do with the rings, but Zevran is the only one in the room who knows all the pieces and can put it together easily. Wynne is oblivious, as is Morrigan. Brosca looks suspicious, but Zevran already knew to be careful around her. When she shoots him a look, he quirks an eyebrow and gives her a one-shoulder shrug as if to say, "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I don't know," Alistair says. "Mostly I try not to think about it at all."

This time, the look Brosca gives Zevran is apologetic, which he doesn't understand until she says, "All right, so do it now, and see if you can feel anything."

Zevran's stomach turns, but he ignores it and looks at Alistair. When Alistair just looks back, miserable, Zevran says, "Your move, my friend."

Alistair mutters something under his breath, then says more clearly, "Stand up."

And Zevran's body does as ordered, rising to its feet despite his instinctive attempt to fight the compulsion. Resistance works no better than it ever has, and worse, he notices for the first time that Alistair's control is improving. Rather than lurching upright, Zevran's body stands almost smoothly, with only a little wobbling. Like Alistair, Zevran has been trying not to think about any of these experiments as they're happening, and that might have been a tactical error.

Too late to do anything about it now, though, so he forces his attention outward and looks at Alistair, waiting for what happens next.

"Nothing," Alistair is saying, with evident relief. "I didn't feel anything."

"Try something that lasts a bit longer," Brosca suggests, a hint of dryness in her voice. "You'd have a hard time noticing anything that fast."

Alistair looks almost as unhappy as Zevran feels, but he squares his shoulders and says, "Hold still."

He issued the command while Zevran was looking at him, leaving Zevran now unable to look anywhere else. There are far worse places to be forced to stare, and Zevran distracts himself by thinking about what he and Alistair might do tonight.

It's probably for the best that Alistair has his eyes closed.

The silence in the room stretches out, Alistair frowning in concentration while the others stare at him, four cats waiting at a mousehole. From his current angle, Zevran can't see Brosca's fingers to judge her mood, but he would swear he can feel her vibrating beside him.

"There's maybe something?" Alistair says, after so long that his voice startles all of them. Oblivious, Alistair goes on without opening his eyes, "I'm not sure, but...maybe."

At the edge of his peripheral vision, Zevran can see Wynne purse her lips. "Try this, please. Imagine that 'something' as a rope, a tangible thing you could hold."

Alistair's hands move to halfway between relaxed and where they would be if the rope he's imagining was real. Not even Morrigan comments.

"Good," Wynne says encouragingly. "Now I want you to pull very gently."

"All right," Alistair says doubtfully. His fingers flex on the imaginary rope, and then his hands twitch as he "pulls."

Three things happen simultaneously: Zevran's muscles go weak, Morrigan makes a sound of triumph, and Wynne barks "stop!" in a voice worthy of a military commander in the middle of a battle.

Like any well-trained soldier, Alistair stops, which in this case means releasing the spell. Normally Zevran would be grateful to be back in control of his own body, but he's not prepared for it this time. Trembling with sudden exhaustion, he can't catch his balance, and one of his feet gets caught on his other leg, sending him lurching sideways into Brosca.

Who doesn't budge by so much as an inch. It's vaguely reminiscent of running into a boulder, if boulders were capable of grabbing his arm without looking and simultaneously asking, "What happened?" Unlike Wynne, Brosca doesn't raise her voice, but Zevran knows which of the two of them is more dangerous.

Morrigan appears oblivious to everything else happening in the room, her eyes focused on something Zevran can't see and her hands moving through empty air. The expression on Wynne's face strongly implies she'd rather be doing the same, but she turns to Brosca anyway.

"It would seem your suspicions were correct," Wynne says. "These rings have more than one spell, and the second...well, you saw for yourself."

"Yeah," Brosca mutters. "Yeah, I did." With the hand not clamped around Zevran's arm, she rubs the bridge of her nose and says to him in an aside, "You know, I really wanted the problem to be pretty much anything else. I wouldn't even have mentioned it to you last night, except it seemed wrong _not_ to saying something."

"Thank you," Zevran says, because as little as he likes any of this, he is grateful to her for that. "And, ah, I believe you can let go now."

She gives his arm a last, reassuring squeeze, then looks back at Wynne. "What else can you tell me?"

"Not much," Wynne says apologetically. "Perhaps I shouldn't have cut things short, but I wasn't sure how well controlled it was."

She'd thought it completely uncontrolled is what she means, and Zevran doesn't blame her. Alistair isn't a mage, and he's certainly never been trained like one. There's no reason he would be able to control a magic ring from an ancient and forgotten thaig.

"Um," Alistair says, edging his way hesitantly into the conversation. Morrigan is still lost in whatever she's working on, but Brosca, Wynne, and Zevran all look at him in surprise. "Can I try something?"

The question is technically addressed to all three of them, but his eyes are locked on Zevran's, and it's Zevran's nod he waits for.

"All right," Alistair says to himself, and closes his eyes. "All right."

At first, nothing happens. Morrigan continues to play with invisible shapes, Wynne and Brosca watch Alistair with a level of intent focus even Zevran would find unnerving, and Zevran checks his body over and over for any sign of the rings' magic. Other than the lingering weakness still making his muscles shake, there's nothing.

It takes him longer than it otherwise might to recognize what's happening, because it's the reverse of what he's expecting. Instead of his muscles growing weaker, the shaking gradually stops. That could as easily be his body recovering naturally, except it doesn't stop there, and soon it's all he can do not to bounce on his toes the way Alistair was earlier. There's so much energy bubbling inside him, he can barely hold still.

"Alistair," he says quietly, "you can stop now."

Alistair lets out an explosive breath and puts a hand to his head, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead, directly above one eye. His face is drawn tight as if he's in pain. "Andraste's ass," he mutters.

Wynne brushes his hand aside and touches her fingers to the same spot. Giving him back a little of the energy he gave to Zevran, by the way his face relaxes. Zevran makes himself wait for Wynne to finish, though the fear roiling his stomach turns it into a struggle.

"What did you do?" he asks when Wynne steps back as much as the crowded room will allow. "That was not the same as what you did before." It's not any better, though. Unlike the other night, when the energy filling him had excited him in more ways than one, this makes him feels twitchy and restless, irritable in a way he's not used to feeling and doesn't much like.

"Something they taught us as templar recruits," Alistair says. "Or...something like it." His hands sketch a vague shape in the air, and he opens and closes his mouth several times before shaking his head. "I can try to explain if you want, but it's part of how we use lyrium."

"Do it again," Morrigan orders.

They all turn to look at her, but she ignores everyone except Alistair. "Do it again," she says impatiently.

Alistair looks first at Zevran and waits for his nod before looking at Brosca. Only once she's also given approval does he close his eyes and visibly settle himself.

Now that Zevran knows what to expect, he can feel the magic seeping into him, permeating muscle and bone until it's physically painful to hold still. He would almost prefer the exhaustion: at least that didn't feel like his blood was somehow full of sand and glass, every beat of his heart scraping his veins raw.

"Alistair," he says again. His voice is pitched too low for this setting, but it's the only way he can keep from shouting. "The other way, please. Take some of it back."

Brosca gives him a curious look but says nothing, and Morrigan is instantly, eagerly in favor of the suggestion.

Alistair shifts his weight without opening his eyes, and to Zevran's immense relief, the flow of energy stops. Under normal circumstances, he would be less happy about the way it then begins to drain away, except he feels as if he might literally explode at any moment, like one of his grenades dropped carelessly onto a stone floor. Anything that draws off a little of that magic is welcome.

Morrigan makes Alistair run through two more complete cycles, pulling energy from Zevran and then pushing it back to him, before she gives a sharp nod. She and Wynne then launch into a heated argument over something, the fight vicious for all their quiet voices.

Brosca gives them an exasperated look but turns to Alistair . "All right, they have what they need. If you think you can..."

For perhaps the first time since Zevran has known her, Brosca hesitates, searching for the right words.

"If I tell you to balance things back out," she says at last, "do you know what I mean?"

"I think so," Alistair says. "I don't know if I can get it exactly right, though."

"I don't care about exact," Brosca says, "just get it close."

Alistair does his best, taking away his energy and then giving it back in increasingly smaller increments. It's nauseating, and by the beads of sweat forming on Alistair's forehead, Zevran isn't the only one who feels that way. Zevran's skin is still itchy and too tight when Alistair finally stops, but it's tolerable, and vastly preferable to Alistair continuing to work on perfection. Given Wynne's earlier healing, it's entirely possible Alistair thinks he _has_ taken back all the energy he gave up.

"Sit down," Brosca says, looking back and forth between them. "I can't catch both of you at the same time."

Sitting down makes the itching worse, but Zevran doesn't dare disobey. Instead, he sits in his chair and works on fidgeting in ways no one can see, tensing his muscles one by one from his ankles to his chest and then back down. Alistair, seated on the edge of the bed, is far less subtle, flexing his fingers and jiggling his leg so hard Zevran can feel it through the floor. Rather than the amusement Zevran would normally feel, the sensation grates on him a little more with every passing breath.

Fortunately, Brosca reaches the end of her patience before he does.

"Wynne," she says in her deadly calm voice. "Morrigan. Argue the theory after you tell me what it is that has you both wound so tight."

Zevran understands only about half of the explanation that follows, but he feels like it's the half that matters. It's definitely enough to make him feel even sicker.

"A third spell," Brosca says flatly, after Morrigan finishes. "There's a third spell."

"A fourth, technically," Wynne says. When they all turn to look at her in surprise, she adds, a trifle patronizingly, "The protection the rings provide is real, not simply a way to hide the other spells."

Brosca gives her a look that strongly suggests she thinks Wynne is missing the point and says in a voice that gets flatter and colder by the word, "Fine. There's a _fourth_ spell. And you don't know what it does."

Morrigan and Wynne equivocate for a while, until Brosca cuts them off with an irritated growl. "You don't know what it does." There isn't even an implied question in the words, not this time.

"Well," Zevran drawls with amusement he doesn't feel, "we can be relatively sure that it will not allow Alistair to take control of my body, or drain the life from me. That narrows it down a bit, does it not?"

Brosca's lips twitch, though Wynne and Morrigan look annoyed. For his part, Alistair just continues to stare numbly at the floor, as if he's the one whose life has spiraled completely out of his control. The Crow masters weren't much for allowing their students a great deal of freedom, but even they didn't have the power over Zevran that Alistair now does. It's terrifying, and Zevran doesn't know what to do with the choking panic filling his chest.

"You don't know what it does," Brosca says to Wynne and Morrigan for a third time, "and you don't know what could trigger it, and you still don't know how to get the rings off."

They'd had some suggestions on that last point, most of them gruesome and one or two truly horrifying, but in the end, they were in agreement that attempts to physically remove the rings would either kill Zevran or simply fail. Whether such an attempt would also kill Alistair was a debate they hadn't yet settled, but it seems an academic point to Zevran. Fortunately for him, it is to Brosca as well, and she has no interest in listening to them argue about it.

"Can you give me _anything_?" Brosca asks.

"We might be able to create a spell that would at least let you," Wynne nods at Zevran, "know when the rings' magic is active. An alarm of sorts."

"Appreciated," Zevran says, "but unnecessary. I know what it feels like now, so any such alarm would be redundant." And even if it wouldn't, the last thing he wants is yet more magic he can't control and doesn't understand riding around under his skin.

"I would never do it on purpose," Alistair says softly. For the first time since Wynne and Morrigan began their explanation, he raises his eyes from the floor so he can meet Zevran's gaze. "I'm so sorry."

Zevran waves this away. "It was unintentional, and nothing you could have anticipated." He's still twitching and irritated, too full of someone else's energy, but there's nothing to be gained by making Alistair feel worse. Mostly what Zevran wants is to escape this room and these people, even Brosca. The air feels close and stale, and it's doing nothing for the tightness in his chest that's making every breath a struggle.

If he was willing to show his hand and reveal how little he wants to be here, he knows Brosca would let him leave. Since he isn't prepared to reveal any such thing, he has to sit and wait and try to make jokes rather than snap at people.

Finally, some interminable amount of time later, Brosca calls a halt to the discussion. Wynne and Morrigan turn immediately back to the vicious argument Brosca wouldn't let them have before, and Zevran heads for the door at the fastest speed he'll allow himself. Alistair is still sitting on the edge of the bed studying his clasped hands, which means that if Zevran is quick enough, he can avoid talking to anyone until he's had a chance to settle his thoughts. Maybe do something about the excess of energy burning inside him, too, though he's not sure what. His usual solutions hold no appeal right now, but he doesn't have anything to replace them with.

Brosca clears her throat, and even in his current mood, Zevran is amused that such a quiet, unobtrusive sound would instantly fix all eyes in the room on her. He's equally amused--and equally unsurprised--that she seems to accept that reaction as a given.

"Today's your own," she says, her gaze sweeping over all of them, "but spend at least some of it packing, because we're leaving tomorrow."

"Leaving?" Alistair says, and he sounds as startled as Zevran feels, though neither of them should be anything of the sort.

"We can't stay here much longer," Brosca says. "The archdemon won't wait for us, and we've lost too much time already with that stupid trip to the Anvil."

And with the week they've wasted kicking their heels here in Orzammar. Zevran declines to feel guilty about that, but he's also under no illusions about whether they can afford to stay longer. He might not be sure of his own place in the world right now, or even whether he wants to try to find one, but he'd like to keep the option open, and that means there needs to be a world for him to find a place in.

"We'll go to the Circle first," Brosca adds, with a nod to him and Alistair, "but I can't make any promises about how long we'll be able to stay. If the weather's shit and it takes us a month to get there, then it won't be but a couple days."

The shrug she gives them is sympathetic without being apologetic, an acknowledgement that a few days almost certainly won't be enough, and that it doesn't matter. Until the archdemon is dead, the Blight will always be her first priority, and Zevran would expect nothing else.

"Of course, oh most generous of leaders." Zevran gives her a flamboyant bow, hoping to distract her before those too-sharp eyes notice how tense he is. "Whatever time you can allow us will be welcome."

One corner of her mouth twitches in a brief smile. "I'm sure it will."

She turns halfway toward Wynne to ask something about the best route from the Circle to Redcliffe, and Zevran seizes his chance for escape. Something about the angle of Brosca's body says she isn't done with him, but for once, he pretends not to notice. She knows where to find him, and by the time she tracks him down, he'll have had at least a little while to get himself under control. Which will be easier to do outside this room.

There's just one thing he failed to take into account.

He isn't even halfway down the hallway when Alistair calls his name. The temptation to ignore him and continue walking is nearly overwhelming: of all the people in the room Zevran just escaped, Alistair is the one he least wants to talk to right now. With the rings' magic still making him twitch, he doesn't need to be any closer to someone who could make it worse with just a careless thought, and he doesn't have the patience for apologies and misplaced guilt.

But pretending he didn't hear Alistair call his name isn't an option, either, so Zevran pastes on a smile and turns, already plotting the quickest way to put an end to a conversation that technically hasn't even started yet.

It says something about his state of mind that he doesn't realize Alistair is angry until he's nearly in arm's reach, and Zevran can't adjust his expectations fast enough to take control of the conversation.

"Brosca told you about this last night?" Alistair demands, his voice pitched low despite his anger.

"Told me about what?" Zevran asks, though he knows perfectly well. He just wants an extra moment to put his thoughts in order.

"About the rings," Alistair says. He steps in close, and while Zevran would bet money it's simply so they can speak quietly, it feels threatening. "That you were so tired yesterday because of me and this fucking magic."

"She mentioned it as a possibility," Zevran says. There's no point denying it when Brosca has already said as much in Alistair's hearing. "But no one knew for certain until just now."

"You didn't know for sure," Alistair says, "but you knew there was a chance. A good enough chance for Brosca to drag us all up here first thing this morning."

"Still only a chance," Zevran points out.

"You didn't think maybe I'd want to know?" Alistair demands.

"Why worry you over a chance?" It had seemed like unassailable reasoning last night, but now that Zevran has to say it aloud, it doesn't sound nearly so perfect.

"Because I had a right to know!"

The magic still itching under his skin sparks into anger. " _You_ have a right to know?" Zevran asks in a voice as soft and cold as any of Brosca's. " _You_ do? Because I was under the impression that I was the one whose life could be drained away at someone else's whim."

Alistair sets his jaw, immune or oblivious to the threat in Zevran's voice. "You think all this makes me happy?" he asks, and he sounds as angry as Zevran feels. "You think I want to be tied to you?"

That shouldn't hurt but it does, and Zevran reacts instinctively to the pain. "At least you get something out of it," he says coolly, with the faintest hint of a smirk to make it clear what he means.

His words hit their mark, rocking Alistair back on his heels, and Zevran regrets them immediately. Before he can take them back, Alistair's chin comes up again, anger masking most of the hurt.

"I know you have it worse," Alistair growls, "I really do, but that doesn't give you the right to hide things that affect me, too, and-"

"Zevran?" Brosca calls.

Alistair wheels around as Zevran steps sideways to see past him. He can only imagine what the two of them look like, but Brosca's eyebrows shoot up to her hairline at the sight of their faces.

"Everything all right?" she asks.

"Fine," Alistair snarls. "Everything's just fucking fine."

"Mm, yes," she drawls, "it all looks very fine."

"It's fine," Alistair repeats. Without waiting for a response, he storms off down the hallway and into his room. He neither shoves Zevran aside nor slams his door, but he hardly needs to do either.

Brosca gives Zevran a look. "Care to explain?"

"Not especially, no." His tone is barely more civil than Alistair's, anger sparking inside him the way it so rarely does. The rings' magic is still crawling under his skin, and he can't seem to get control.

"Right," Brosca says. She waits a while, but it takes more than silence to break Zevran, even in a mood like this. When he declines to elaborate, she shakes her head and changes the subject. "What kind of winter gear do you have?"

It's not at all what he was expecting. He needs a moment to understand what she's asking and he can't think of a better answer than, "The normal sort, I would assume."

"Why don't you show me?" she asks.

He doesn't want to be shut in a room with anyone right now, but it's not an unreasonable request. He's caught by the same trap as he was earlier, in Morrigan's room: either admit to his discomfort and reveal a weakness, or grit his teeth and tolerate her presence until she's satisfied.

"Your wish is my command," he says. His tone falls short of joking, but she doesn't comment as she follows him back to his room.

She looks over his gear with the abstracted expression of someone checking each item against a mental list, cataloguing everything in half the time he expected. It would be a relief, except that rather than allow him to spend the rest of the day alone in his room, Brosca drags him out into the city so she and Sten can outfit him with a staggering quantity of new clothes and equipment. Almost literally staggering.

"How do you expect me to fight in this?" Zevran asks, his voice as neutral as he can manage. Hours of walking from one end of Orzammar to the other have burned off much of the restive energy the rings left behind, but those same hours have left him footsore and weighed down with what seems to him a ridiculous excess of gear. He won't have to carry all of it, of course--Brosca intends to buy a sled for the heaviest items, one Salroka can pull--but some of this will interfere with his ability to fight no matter what else he is or isn't carrying. The clothes alone are bulky and restrictive, limiting his movements by small degrees that might nevertheless be the difference between living and dying.

Or between walking away unscathed and earning another set of scars to match the ones on his arm.

"You do not need to fight in it," Sten says. Zevran opens his mouth to ask why they're buying any of it if that's the case, and Sten adds, "You can simply let the darkspawn kill you."

"How encouraging," Zevran drawls, amused even though he knows Sten isn't joking.

"Or you can continue as you are..." Sten pauses to give Zevran's armor a disapproving look. "...and the darkspawn will not be a concern."

"The cold will kill you first," Brosca explains helpfully.

"So I had gathered," Zevran says. "And yet, winter has not even begun. How cold can it be?"

Brosca fishes a coin from her purse and flicks it into the air, letting the flash of gold reveal it for a sovereign. Her eyes on Zevran, one eyebrow quirked, she catches the coin without looking and says, "You'll be complaining you're cold by the end of the first day. Even with all this."

Zevran gives her a raised-brow look of his own, as haughty as if he isn't laughing inside, the last of his bad mood evaporating. Rather than let her see his amusement, he pulls a sovereign from his own purse and flicks it higher into the air than she did hers. Then, while it's still arching upward, he makes a show of pulling out a second and flicking it into the air to join the first, but in a shorter arc so that both land in his outstretched palm at nearly the same moment.

"Two-to-one odds," Brosca says. "You're pretty confident."

"I am," he says with a cocky grin.

"Done, then."

She holds out her hand to shake, and Zevran takes it with mock solemnity.

It feels odd to bet her with her own money, no matter how adamant she is that he earned it--a one-eighth share of the proceeds from selling the artefacts they brought back from the Deep Roads--but if she's going to insist that it's his, then he might as well treat it as such. Which includes betting against her with it. What else is he going to spend it on?

His good mood lasts him the rest of their shopping, but it can't hold up to the silence in his room once they return to the inn. Half a dozen times as he re-packs his bags, he finds his thoughts straying to Alistair: what he might say about the bet with Brosca, whether he agrees that Sten is over-cautious, and how he might react if Zevran were to make jokes about a different sort of silk underthings. Jokes that could lead to something more fun than packing.

Except there won't be any such jokes, not today and perhaps not ever. Too many years of Crow training taught Zevran to strike back when attacked, and taught him how to find the gaps in someone's armor. There are worse places he could have attacked Alistair, things he could have said that would have been truly unforgivable, but just because it could have been worse doesn't mean it wasn't bad. The hurt on Alistair's face had been very real and entirely justified, and Zevran wishes he could go back in time to unsay those words.

Since that isn't possible, an apology will have to do, if only Alistair didn't seem bent on making it impossible. At supper, he sits at the opposite end of the table from Zevran and eats without once raising his eyes from his food. He excuses himself the instant he's done, and Zevran doesn't dare follow immediately for fear of drawing Brosca's attention. By the time he does reach Alistair's room, the door is firmly locked.

Zevran stands in the hallway for a long moment, eyeing the lock. It would be easy to pick, even with the need to work quickly and be through the door before any of the others returned. He could make his apology, and then make it up to Alistair in any of a number of mutually-pleasurable ways. If Alistair wanted to punish him, Zevran certainly wouldn't object; he's enjoyed that particular game in the past, and while there are people who would take it too far, Zevran can't imagine Alistair doing anything that would truly harm him.

But that locked door doesn't suggest Alistair is interested in an apology, or in meting out punishment, so Zevran turns away and tries to pretend it doesn't matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you feel so inclined, I'm curious what else people think the rings do. :)
> 
> ETA: Tweaked a couple things to make it clearer how many spells there are. No big change, just a couple sentences, but I felt like it wasn't as clear as I wanted.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got about 30 minutes into researching what winter travel was like 1000 years ago, realized I was about to fall down a very deep rabbit hole, and backed away fast. So this is all based on 30 minutes of research + living in Ottawa for a few years after moving from somewhere with a climate a bit more Antivan. If someone wants to correct any of it, feel free! I just knew where I would end up if I kept going, and it wasn't anywhere that included a finished version of this story.
> 
> Oh, and fair warning: this is not a good chapter for Zevran. Being cold, lonely, and miserable doesn't help anyone, but especially not someone who tried to kill himself a month ago. This chapter dwells on it more than the past few have, plus we have some more fun with leftovers from Crow training.

At breakfast the next morning, Alistair is still quiet and withdrawn, but Zevran doesn't get a chance to talk to him. The common room is too public, and afterward, the hallway their rooms are on is alive with activity as everyone finishes the last of their packing. Half of the party leaves their doors wide open, and there's always at least one person coming or going. No amount of stealth would get Zevran from his door to Alistair's unnoticed.

The day's walk provides even fewer opportunities. Just getting back to the surface takes most of the morning, and Zevran gets the dubious honor of Sten's undivided attention for a lecture on the various dangers of winter travel. Zevran isn't foolish enough to ignore the lecture, no matter how patronizing the tone in which it's delivered, but that doesn't give him a chance to draw Alistair aside, or even to plan how he might do it. Offers he could have made in the privacy of Alistair's room aren't so easily made with the others nearby. Whether they can overhear or not, Alistair's expression would give it all away.

Then they step through Orzammar's gates, and Zevran's mind is shocked into silence by the cold. It works its way under his clothes, burrowing down his collar and up his sleeves, and it would be crawling up his legs if his trousers weren't tucked into his boots too tightly to allow it. It's only been a month since they went through the gates the other way, and it's barely halfway through autumn. How is it already this cold?

He opens his mouth to comment, then closes it when he realizes that it could lose him his bet with Brosca. They never specified what constituted complaining about the cold, and Zevran isn't prepared to risk losing, just for the chance to make known his feelings about this ridiculous weather. Because it is ridiculous. How does anyone live here?

He'll have to ask tomorrow morning, when the bet is safely won.

For now, he falls in behind Brosca and concentrates on his footing, which isn't perfect but also isn't nearly as bad as Sten's grim predictions led him to believe it would be. The road to Orzammar is well-travelled even with the Blight, at least in part because news had spread only slowly that the city was closed to outsiders, and Brosca's party is the unintended beneficiary of all those disappointed merchants. Hundreds of sleds have packed down the snow, and the clawed bits of iron now strapped to the bottoms of Zevran's boots make it surprisingly easy to keep his feet. He's still not looking forward to trying to fight in them, but now that he's used to the weight, he can see where they could be a weapon in their own right.

Debating how to make the most effective use of clawed boots is preferable to staring at the back of Alistair's head, which is the only part of him Zevran sees between the time they leave Orzammar and when they break at noon. Even during that break, Zevran barely has a chance to make eye contact, because Sten spends most of the time lecturing all of them except Alistair and Morrigan on the dangers of sweat. All of them, including Brosca. Zevran can't decide if that's brave or suicidal, but Brosca nods attentively the whole time, which means the rest of them have to do the same.

Sweat isn't something Zevran normally considers dangerous unless he's hanging from a ledge by his fingertips, and the idea of deliberately taking off his coat in order to stay cold sounds insane. He doesn't care if Sten says "slightly" cold: cold is cold, and this country is even crazier than Zevran realized. Why would anyone want to live somewhere their own sweat could cause them to freeze to death?

Whatever Zevran's personal feelings, Brosca's expression makes it clear she expects all of them to listen, and so when they set out again, they all shed a few layers of clothing. Zevran tries not to shiver visibly.

To top it off, he never does manage to speak to Alistair. The one time he manages to make eye contact, Alistair's answering scowl doesn't say good things about Zevran's chances of making this right.

The afternoon is a slow but steady decline into misery. He's "slightly" cold the entire time, his hands stiff and clumsy, his nose running, the moisture of his own breath turning to ice on the section of his scarf protecting his face. His eyes ache from squinting against the glaring white of all that snow, his feet ache where the spiked straps change the shape of his boots and make them chafe, and his legs ache as the subtle difference between walking on stone and walking on ice--even with spiked boots--forces him to use muscles that don't typically have to work so hard. It isn't much of a consolation that he's been far more miserable in the past.

They stop well before sundown, but Zevran's relief is short-lived as the reason for that becomes clear: setting up camp takes twice as long as he thought it would. Sten directs them with an efficiency that's strongly reminiscent of Brosca, except Brosca doesn't usually look at them like they're all falling short in every possible way. Sten might be the expert, but it's Brosca's calm acceptance of his instructions that pulls the rest of them into line, rather than any charm or force of personality on Sten's part.

And Zevran still isn't allowed to put his coat back on, not while the work of setting up camp is keeping him warm. Or should be, according to Sten.

Halfway through gathering enough pine branches to build a small fortress, Zevran gives up. He digs under his coat, grimacing as his sap-sticky hands catch on the wool, until he finds his purse and can pull two sovereigns out of it.

Brosca is pounding tent stakes into the frozen ground, but she rests the mallet on her shoulder when she sees him approaching. "All right?" she asks.

"No," he says, holding out the sovereigns to her. He waits for her to take them, and only once understanding dawns on her face does he say, "I hate this country."

To her credit, she makes a sincere effort to stop the laugh, but it escapes anyway in a sound halfway between a snort and a cough. Her tone is diplomatic, though, as she says, "It's a bit colder here than in Antiva."

"It is," he says, enunciating carefully. "It is cold, and I hate it, and now, at least, I am free to complain about it."

"That you are," she agrees blandly. She bounces the coins on her palm, studying him, and he thinks for a moment she's going to give them back to him, but in the end, she drops them into her own purse.

Good. A bet is a bet, and he doesn't want pity. He just wants to be warm.

He also wants to talk to Alistair privately, but it doesn't look like he'll be getting that, either. Alistair is still doing his best to avoid eye contact, and even when they're all huddled together to eat, Alistair finds a place in their circle where Zevran can't easily see him. How someone as tall as Alistair can hide behind Leliana is a mystery, but he manages it, and as soon as he's done eating, he escapes to throw sticks for Salroka.

Just watching them makes Zevran tired. Alistair walked as far as he did, and Salroka walked the same distance while pulling a sled holding the gear that was too awkward to carry easily. Zevran would never normally consider a day of walking to be strenuous, but the cold is draining the life from him like a revenant. All he wants to do is huddle under his cloak, as close to the fire as he can get without burning his boots.

He would blame the rings, except that explanation doesn't fit. After so many days as the subject of Wynne and Morrigan's experiments, he's learning to recognize the feel of the rings' magic. Looking back, he can even point to the moments when they were probably draining him, feelings he had dismissed because it didn't occur to him they might mean anything. Now he knows what to look for, and there's no sign of that magic anywhere.

Unless he's deluding himself, and he only thinks he would recognize it because he doesn't want to face the idea the rings' magic is too subtle for him to sense unless he also has some other kind of hint.

Maybe he should reconsider Wynne's offer. As little as he likes the idea of another spell, it might be worth it to know for sure when the rings' magic is active. He still wouldn't be able to do anything about it, but at least he would know.

Assuming it worked as Wynne intended and wasn't twisted somehow by the rings' magic. Which would be worse than no warning at all.

And so it goes, for the rest of the evening. Zevran chases his thoughts around in endless circles, unable to make a decision even as he's annoyed with his own indecision. If this was a fight, he'd be dead ten times over by now.

His day doesn't improve when he finds himself sharing a tent with Oghren rather than Alistair. Earlier, when they were setting up the tents and Zevran first realized everyone would be sharing, he'd hoped to play that to his advantage. It's impossible, however, to feign a casual, "Oh, well, since we're both standing in front of the same tent, I guess we're sharing," if Alistair won't look at him. Anything less subtle is likely to give Brosca a hint Zevran doesn't want to give her; she's too sharp by half, eyes and mind both.

When no one except Leliana admits to an opinion on who they'll share with, Brosca assigns tents without a qualm. Morrigan has already made it clear that if her options are to share a tent or sleep in the snow, she'll choose the snow and a bear's shape to ward off the cold. So Alistair gets Salroka, and Zevran gets Oghren, and there's nothing to be done except smile like it doesn't matter.

A little to Zevran's surprise, Oghren isn't the worst person to share space with. He isn't slovenly or careless with his gear, and while he does take up more than half of the tent, it's only because his armor needs more room than Zevran's. The smell of alcohol when Oghren opens a flask is the closest thing to offensive about any of it. Well, and the fact that Oghren isn't Alistair, but it's unfair to blame him for that, so Zevran crawls into his own bedroll without comment and tries to sleep.

It isn't easy. Memories of Rinna and Taliesen weave themselves into dreams of being encased in ice, and he wakes from those shivering in the very real cold of a Frostback night. Or he dreams of Alistair, pieces of a dozen memories blurred together, and wakes feeling significantly warmer but just as unhappy. His hard cock is easy to understand--and ignore, as he's nowhere near desperate enough to stroke himself with Oghren two feet away--but there are other desires tangled up in the lust, and he doesn't understand those nearly so well. After Rinna's death, he went months touching no one unless there was an immediate, practical need; even sex was only for a purpose, exchanged for information or access to places he wouldn't otherwise have been able to go. He didn't miss being touched, either, and he doesn't like that he misses it now. Another weakness on a list that's growing too quickly.

He wants to blame the rings for this, too, but he doesn't think he can, any more than he can blame them for his exhaustion. If he had any doubts, all he has to do to dispel them is imagine Brosca's hand on his shoulder. He has no interest in crawling into her tent the way he wants to crawl into Alistair's, but as soon as he erases sex from the picture, a part of him stretches toward it almost as desperately as it does toward the memory of Alistair stroking his hair.

But if he can't blame the rings for this inexplicable longing to touch and be touched, Zevran doesn't know what to do with it. He went months with barely any touch at all, and he never missed it. That the need for it has only become urgent now, after a few nights in which he had as much as he wanted, reminds him uneasily of the way people can become dependent on drink or the extracts from certain plants. He's watched a few people make that slow descent into a place where nothing matters except finding a way to get more of the thing destroying them, and he has no desire to join their ranks. If the rings are responsible, then he'd rather know, even if that means allowing Wynne or Morrigan to cast another spell on him.

None of which makes for a restful night. The only good to come out of it is that he sits down to breakfast with his mind made up about one thing.

Morrigan isn't avoiding him the way Alistair is, which makes it easy to pull her aside as they're breaking camp. When he tells her what he wants, he's surprised by her snort of laughter.

"Alistair is there ahead of you," she says. "He asked for the same thing yesterday afternoon."

Zevran crushes the impulse to look around for Alistair and instead works on looking interested but not _too_ interested. "Does that mean you cannot cast it for me as well?"

"He went to Wynne," Morrigan says. "I only know because I can sense it on him. And even if he had come to me, 't would be easy enough to cast again. It requires nothing from me once 'tis cast."

"So neither you nor Wynne will know if he uses the rings?" Zevran asks.

"No more than I would any other magic nearby. The spell I cast would tell me nothing."

Good. Whatever Zevran chooses to do or not do if Alistair tries to use the rings' magic, he wants it to be a decision he makes without anyone looking over his shoulder.

"Is it a difficult spell?" he asks.

"I could cast it now," she says with a small shrug, "if you like."

Like is too mild a word, but he's not going to admit that aloud. "Now seems as good a time as any."

The casting itself is rather boring, and a little disappointing for its lack of showiness. There are no flashing lights or booming voices or strange sensations, just Morrigan walking a slow circle around him, her expression abstracted and her staff loose in her hand. He doesn't know she's done until she says so, and he doesn't feel any different.

"How will it alert me?" he asks, half distracted by searching for any sign of the spell's presence. With no magic of his own, he has to trust that she's done it properly, and he doesn't like having to trust someone he barely knows for something so important.

One corner of her mouth curls in a smile. "You'll know."

It's not a reassuring answer, but it will have to do. "My thanks," he says, as if he's not already second-guessing his decision.

"'T will not protect you," she warns. "He can still drain you, should he decide to do it."

"I hardly expect him to do it on purpose," he says, "so a warning is sufficient. Just something so I can remind him to be more careful."

Zevran has no intention of telling her that he suspects the rings of affecting his mind as well as his body. That he _wants_ the rings to be affecting him, because if they're not, then his mind is betraying him, and that would be worse.

As he starts to turn away, another question occurs to him. "How long will it last?"

"A week or so," she says. "I can tell you when I see it weakening. As could Wynne."

So any mage who sees him will know something is off. Wonderful. This is looking more and more like a bad decision, but at least he has the chance to make a different one in a week. He's made plenty of bad decisions that weren't nearly so forgiving.

He opens his mouth to thank Morrigan again and bid her farewell, then every hair on his body tries to stand on end, and _something_ echoes through him. Like a gong, except without sound: something deep and resonant that makes his bones hum.

Then it's gone as quickly as it came, and his gaze snaps to Morrigan's face. She's smiling again, almost a smirk.

"Did I not say that you would know?"

"That could be quite distracting in a fight," he says, smiling to show he's joking even though he isn't.

"Perhaps I can refine it a bit, with practice."

Zevran is decidedly ambivalent about that, since she'd be practicing on him, but he limits himself to a farewell and returns to his tent to finish packing his gear. On the way, he passes Alistair, who glances up in an automatic reaction to someone's presence. As soon as his eyes meet Zevran's, guilt flashes across his face before he looks away again.

"Sorry," he mutters to the tent he's taking down. "It was an accident."

"I know," Zevran says. He pauses, hoping this is the chance he waited for all of yesterday, but Leliana is standing too close, coiling the ropes Alistair has already detached from the stakes, and Zevran has no choice but to move on.

The day doesn't improve from there, mostly because it's nearly identical to yesterday and not just because Alistair won't speak to him. It's still cold, the sun on the snow is still eye-hurtingly bright, and walking still hurts. Zevran isn't even surprised when he ends up sharing a tent with Oghren again: people are creatures of habit, and if the others choose to pair themselves off the same as last night, it doesn't leave Zevran with much in the way of options. Unlike Morrigan, he won't be sleeping in the snow unless every tent they have disappears.

Though he might as well be sleeping in the snow, for all the sleeping he actually manages. Morrigan's spell is silent the whole night, which would be comforting if Zevran didn't still feel pulled: toward Alistair's tent, but also, to a lesser degree, toward Brosca's. If he can't blame the rings, maybe he can blame the cold? Surely that's enough to make anyone long for someone to share a bedroll with.

He doesn't really believe himself, but at least it lets him get a little sleep.

The following day is the same as the previous two, Zevran cold and miserable and doing his best not to let either one show. He tries to limit his complaints to those times when he can at least be amusing about it, but by the end of the day, that means not complaining at all. His sense of humor has frozen over the way Fereldan rivers and lakes apparently do--entire lakes!--and as he sits beside the fire after supper, all he can think about is the ache in his fingers and toes and ears. His rational mind knows he won't freeze to death, and he certainly won't get frostbite with Wynne anywhere nearby, but less rational parts of him can't stop worrying over how the cold will affect his ability to fight. If he's supposed to be Brosca's knife, he'll be a useless one, and if he's useless, then what is he doing here? All he's going to do is get someone killed, and not just himself.

His scarred hand flexes involuntarily, and though both hands are hidden under his cloak, he hastily flexes the other one to mask that accidental movement. It's just an attempt to keep the blood flowing, nothing more.

Even as he does it, his eyes drift past the fire and toward the road he can no longer see in the darkness. He doesn't need to see it, not when he's walked so many nearly-identical miles of it; he knows what it looks like, knows the wide expanse of it, and the narrow verge on the other side, and the sharp drop on the other side of that. He knows how far he is from that drop right now, and he knows how many steps it would take him to cross from here to there. The only thing he doesn't know is whether the drop beside this section of road would be thirty feet down to the next section, or whether it would be much, much farther.

He could go look. Find out how far it is. Just to satisfy his curiosity, of course. If they have to fight, knowing the terrain could-

"Here," someone says curtly, just as something warm and heavy settles over Zevran's shoulders.

Startled, and horrified by his own lack of attention, Zevran very nearly stabs Alistair on pure instinct. Because it is Alistair who's snuck up on him without intending to, and it's Alistair's cloak now draped over him.

Heart still pounding from the shock of being caught so completely unaware, he nevertheless pastes on a smile and starts to unwind himself from the second cloak. "No need for you to freeze on my account."

"I don't need it," Alistair says, the words clipped. "You might as well have it."

Now would be a good time to tease or flirt, and also to insist on giving Alistair back his cloak. Keeping it reveals a weakness, and the cloak will only get in the way if they have to fight. Added to Zevran's own, which he's been huddled under since he finished supper, all that wool is a heavy weight that will be nothing but a hazard. The time it takes him to free himself could be enough to get Brosca killed.

Or Alistair.

Or himself.

Zevran's head aches with the effort it takes not to look toward the road again. Across the fire, Brosca watches him with a thoughtful frown.

"Thank you," he says to Alistair. "Antiva is not nearly so cold."

Alistair jerks his chin in a nod and turns away without saying anything else. Zevran watches him go, wanting to call him back and yet not wanting to risk anyone learning there's more between him and Alistair than thinly-veiled hostility. Not wanting to risk showing another weakness.

Then Alistair has disappeared inside his tent, and the opportunity is gone. Zevran looks back toward the fire, unsure if he's relieved, and finds Brosca still watching him.

He gives her a grin that lies by telling the truth, the sort of grin he would give her if he would be joining Alistair in that tent to share something other than a cloak. It doesn't hint at intimacy, it shouts it to anyone looking, but so ostentatiously that it seems like the sort of joke Zevran makes all the time. The sort of joke that means nothing.

Brosca raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment.

That night, curled in his bedroll under the weight of two cloaks and nearly warm for the first time in days, Zevran tries to decide what any of it means. How much does Brosca suspect, and how strongly? She can't be sure, or Zevran would know about it, if by no other means than the lecture she would no doubt give him about treating Alistair well. She knows something isn't as it seems, though. Always assuming there's still a "more" for her to know something about, which maybe there isn't.

Or maybe there is. Alistair's cloak is no heavier than Zevran's, but it feels like it's pinning him to the ground, a warm and comforting weight. Is it a good sign that, even angry, Alistair lent it to him? Or is it just Alistair being himself, the kind of person who would tolerate being cold if it meant someone else was warm?

Zevran is still turning that question over in his head two days later when they reach an inn, and the promise of a real bed chases out everything else. They're very nearly the inn's only guests, and while that's bad for the innkeeper, it only improves Zevran's day. He gets a room to himself, and a chance to wash with hot water, and a real bed. There's only one thing that could make it even better, and he's hopeful as he lies in bed waiting for the others to settle in for the night.

When they finally have, he pads silently down the hall to Alistair's room. He half expects the door to be locked, and he hasn't decided what he'll do if it is, but fortunately, it's a moot point: the latch on Alistair's door lifts easily, and the door opens without a sound.

Inside, Alistair is seated on the side of the bed, barefoot but otherwise dressed. Just the sight of his feet makes Zevran feel cold; the inn is far warmer than any camp, but it's not _that_ warm. The chimney for one of the common room's two large fireplaces cuts through a corner of Zevran's room, heating it nicely, and even in there, he kept his boots on.

He shuts Alistair's door firmly and turns toward the bed, his mouth opening by habit on some light, joking comment, but the words die as Alistair stands up and folds his arms over his chest. Something about his expression is uncomfortably reminiscent of how Zevran felt the second night Alistair came to his room, after Zevran had spent the day thinking Alistair was ignoring him on purpose. It's the look of someone both wary and trapped, someone thinking of ways to limit the pain because avoiding it entirely is no longer an option. It stops Zevran more effectively than any wall or lock, all the more because he knows Alistair didn't intend for him to see it.

Rather than come farther into the room, Zevran stays by the door, the fingertips of one hand resting against the wood as visible proof to Alistair that Zevran hasn't moved closer.

"I came to apologize," he says. Such directness feels unnatural, but he can't be anything else with Alistair looking at him like that. "I should have told you about Brosca's theory after she told it to me. I was grateful to her for doing me that courtesy, one I then failed to extend to you."

Alistair's fingers curl and uncurl in the sleeve of his shirt. "I shouldn't have gotten mad at you," he says. He hasn't relaxed, and his expression hasn't become any more welcoming. "You were right, what you said. It does affect you more than me, and I should have thought about that before I got mad."

"Perhaps," Zevran allows, "but your anger was justified, and I owe you an apology for keeping things from you."

"All right," Alistair says. He hesitates, then adds, "I still shouldn't have gotten mad. I'm sorry."

Zevran wants to touch him, both to soothe the tension humming through him and because...because...

Because he just wants to. He wants to touch Alistair, and he wants Alistair to touch him, and it doesn't make him any happier now than it did a few days ago. Which also doesn't make him want it any less.

His original plan was to apologize for keeping Brosca's theory to himself and then to seduce Alistair by whatever method seemed best. There hadn't seemed any point in bringing up the part where Zevran implied Alistair was the only one getting anything out of their time together, not when there were more pleasant ways for Zevran to demonstrate that he does want to be in Alistair's bed. Surely Alistair would forget more quickly if Zevran didn't mention it again. Maybe he's forgotten already, or so Zevran told himself when he thought about how this conversation would go.

By Alistair's expression, he hasn't forgotten, nor is he likely to.

"I owe you two apologies, in fact," Zevran says. He hopes his sincerity is the only thing coming through in his voice, with none of the apprehension that's making his skin prickle. "One for what I did not say, and one for what I did."

Alistair's hand clenches into a fist, and he looks away. Yes, he definitely remembers.

"You weren't wrong," Alistair says, his voice flat. "I am getting something out of this, aren't I?"

"Nothing you wanted," Zevran says. Alistair's angry, _You think I want to be tied to you?_ echoes in his head, but he doesn't let that show on his face.

"Maybe not with the rings," Alistair says, "but with other...stuff? Yeah, I am. Was. Getting something I wanted." He's silent a moment, jaw working. "So you don't need to apologize for saying something that's true."

"You misunderstand," Zevran says gently. "My apology is for what I allowed those words to imply."

Alistair glances back in his direction, almost but not quite meeting his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I enjoyed our time together, and I should not have implied otherwise."

Alistair's expression says he's unconvinced. "I know I don't know anything," he says. "You don't have to lie about that, either."

"I enjoyed our time together," Zevran repeats firmly. "And I would enjoy doing any of it again, should you wish to."

He makes it almost a question and waits, but Alistair says nothing. When the silence is in danger of becoming more awkward than the conversation, Zevran puts on a small smile and lets his hand drop to the doorlatch.

"That was all I wished to say." Not entirely true. He wants to ask if he can stay, but he hasn't forgotten the cornered look on Alistair's face, and he knows that feeling too well. "Pleasant dreams."

"You too," Alistair says.

Zevran keeps his smile in place while he walks back to his room, and while he prepares for bed, and while he makes his last, habitual check of the window and door. He almost leaves the latter unlocked, but he won't be able to sleep if it is, and what's the point of doing that to himself? Alistair might or might not seek him out at some point in the future, but it won't be tonight, so Zevran blows out the candle, climbs into bed, and tries to sleep.


End file.
